


World War B - Part 2

by darrenzieger



Series: World War B [3]
Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23472832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darrenzieger/pseuds/darrenzieger
Summary: Three years after the zombie-ish plague that wiped out most of humanity, life has settled into a reasonably pleasant routine in Seymour's Bay. The Belcher kids and most of their surviving friends are happy, content, or getting by, and Seymour's Bay itself is thriving, producing its own electricity, and seeing to its own supply of clean water and food. There's even a thriving arts community.But nothing's that easy. Trouble - some anticipated, some sure to shock them out of their complacency - looms on the horizon.
Relationships: Bob Belcher/Linda Belcher, Gene Belcher/Courtney Wheeler, Gene Belcher/Jocelyn (Bob's Burgers), Gene Belcher/Original Character(s), Louise Belcher/Rudolph "Regular Sized Rudy" Steiblitz, Tina Belcher/Original Character(s), Tina Belcher/Other(s), Tina Belcher/Zeke (Bob's Burgers)
Series: World War B [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1342978
Comments: 19
Kudos: 13





	1. Catching Up, Checking In, and Wondering WTF

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you looked at this chapter before April 5, I just edited out a bunch of stuff at the end that blew my entire, already tenuous narrative conceit out of the water. This really needed another copy-editing pass before I posted it anyway, so why not use it as an opportunity to walk that little decision back.

JESSICA

Some nights I wake up screaming - not about the plague; I still have those nightmares, and they make me want to slit my own throat. But they’re mostly just indescribably sad, not jump-out-of-your-skin horrifying.

No, what makes me leap up screeching, drenched with sweat, then bury my face in Jocelyn’s neck and cry my eyes out; the thing I and the rest of the medical workers in this town have been in denial about since we started, is this: the painkillers are going to run out.  
  
We’ve still got a reasonable supply for a community of 500. We’ve raided every hospital in a 50-mile radius (nightmare fuel in its own right) and retrieved every drop of morphine, every canister of nitrous oxide, every narcotic -- that is, every bit of those substances that hasn’t gone bad due to lack of refrigeration, exposure to the elements, or physical damage to their containers.  
  
We’re fine, for the moment. 

But some time in the foreseeable future, we’re going to be doing surgery without anesthesia. 

Caesarian sections (of which we’ve performed half a dozen since I returned here) will cease to be an option unless you’re willing to do it old school and recreate the eponymous one. 

Think of a common surgical procedure you might need in your lifetime - not heart surgery or a liver transplant; I mean appendectomy. Cholecystectomy. _Tonsillectomy._

Now, some strong painkillers can be manufactured without modern industrial techniques. But other than growing poppies for opiates, the raw materials are going to be hard to come by, and creating mixtures that are both safe and powerful enough for use as surgical anesthetic could be very, very tricky.

So once or twice a week I have this dream where I’m giving birth, and there are complications, and they have to do a caesarian. So they start slicing me open...

“It’s OK. It’s OK,” murmurs Jocelyn, stroking my hair. “It was just a dream. Was it the one about your parents again?”

“Yes,” I lie. I haven’t mentioned the anesthetic problem to Joss. She already has a doozy of a recurring nightmare about a different kind of pain-killing - the preventive kind, where you put a bullet through your best friend’s head - and she doesn’t need another one.

“Sorry to wake you," I say. "I know you’re exhausted." We had a hurricane come through here a week ago, and Joss volunteered for the cleanup crew. 

“Don’t worry. The cleanup’s done. I can sleep in. We both can.”

Now that we’ve got another six medical assistants trained, I’m taking a vacation. I’ve been on-call 24-7 for over a year; I think I deserve a couple weeks off. Dr. Shin (still indispensable, so not so lucky) agrees. In fact, the practice threw me a party yesterday - Adam baked a cake in the shape of the guy from the Operation game, painstakingly recreating the design in icing. I got to eat the head.

“Hey, let’s binge a show tomorrow,” I suggest. We can’t Netflix (or Amazon, or Hulu) and chill anymore. The services are still up and running, miraculously, but the financial infrastructure that kept everyone’s subscriptions current is gone. So no one on Earth has a valid account anymore, and there’s no way to create one.

But we do have a BluRay/DVD player and thousands of disks. You name it, we can binge it on the 55-inch LED TV we retrieved from the ruins of the local Best Buy. It still feels weird - surreal and at moments profoundly sad - watching Big Bang Theory or 3rd Rock two and a half years after everyone involved in creating the shows has died. 

For the same reason that I freaked out trying to listen to Cyndi Lauper when I first ventured out into the post-plague world, I tend to avoid sitcoms. But I watched all of Big Bang Theory with Jocelyn, just to introduce her to the geek culture she was completely immune to back in the day. It’s kind of fun seeing it through her eyes; I just wish I didn’t hate the show so much. 

“What do you want to watch?” she asks, then answers herself. “Ooh. How about Star Trek. I never watched it before.”

Big surprise. “Which one?”

“All of them, and the movies, in chronological order!”

Ambitious. “Um, wow. Sounds good,” I say. “Well, that’s a lot of sci-fi. Let’s get some more sleep before we boldly go where Jocelyn has never gone before.” 

She gives me a smooch, then thinks the better of it and kisses me in earnest. In less than a minute, she’s asleep again, a talent I envy.

It’s over 15 minutes before I fall asleep peacefully beside her in something resembling a fetal position, hoping there’s a chance I can convince her to skip “Enterprise.”

LOUISE

So this morning, Rudy blindsides me. We've barely finished our first-thing-in-the-morning, get your-heart-started fu... um, lovemaking. Sorry, I’m working on my cursing. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because if you don’t use “fuck” as a comma, it packs a bigger punch when you do use it.

Anyway, we're lying here, panting, still physically enmeshed, when Rudy says. “Lou, let’s get married.”

He sees my eyes bug out.

“Oh, come on, it’s no big deal. We’re in this for good, right.” My eyes have not retracted into their sockets. “Right?” he asks, with much less confidence. And - sorry for the gory detail, but he shrivels inside me, slipping out but leaving the condom stuck in place.

Oh, poor Rude. I keep forgetting how much power I have over him - not in the “do my bidding, slave” sense; he enjoys that. But he really is completely dependent on me for his emotional well-being. I keep telling him we should open up the relationship; not because I want to play around, but because he can’t go through life with only one source of approval. But every time I suggest it, he blanches. Not out of jealousy -- he says if I want to hook up with other dudes, it would be weird, but he’d adjust. It’s the thought of being with someone else himself that freaks him out.

“Yes, of course,” I reassure him as he slumps down beside me and I retrieve the used piece of latex, plopping it in the trash can beside the bed. “I just... Why do we need a ceremony and contract? Do you just need to hear me say it? How I feel?” I do have a way of letting Rude do all the emoting and mushy stuff in the relationship.

I turn to face him. With Herculean effort, I access my Task Manager and force-quit all of my defense application. I don’t project “sincere” very well; but he needs to hear me say this unfiltered.

I hit him with The Face of True, Utter Sincerity, and before I even speak, he gasps just a bit. I realize, as my heart drops into my gut, that I’ve never been truly unguarded, truly myself, around him. Or anyone, actually, but he’s the only one I care about.

It’s difficult to speak, and my vision’s all blurry - must be those damn allergies - but I manage first to whisper, then speak aloud but shakily.

"Rudy, I love you. I... I love you so damn much. You don’t even know, really, because whenever I say it, I’m always holding something back. Like, out of habit. But I want to spend my life with you. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Rudy is transfixed. 

“I was saying we don’t need a ceremony, or a piece of paper, or anything. But you know what? My argument is invalid. Let's do it. Let’s marry the shit out of each other.”

He’s back on Earth now but wearing the stupidest goofy grin. On anyone else, it would be an invitation to a slap, but in Rude’s case, it merely reminds me to re-establish dominance.

“Just to be clear -- First: I am _not_ changing my name...”

Rudy is a happy puppy. “That’s OK, I was hoping to change mine. I didn’t get a lot out of being a Stieblitz. But being a Belcher has always seemed like a good thing to me.”

“That,” I reply, “is because you are weird. Second: We’re not having a big fancy wedding. No church, no synagogue, no big reception. We go to City Hall and sign a contract, which, post-end of civilization, means we’re going to look online, find a marriage contract template, edit out the irrelevant old-world bullshit, print it, and sign it.”

“All good,” says Rudy. “How about we have the reception next door at the restaurant, just a few close friends.”

“Fine. And finally, we are going to either do this immediately or keep it to ourselves until a maximum of 48 hours before the event. I will not have people acting all weird around us for any longer than absolutely necessary. Especially my mother.”

Everything goes all swimmy for a moment.

_Oh. My. God._

_Mom._

“Actually, you know what? No announcement until _one hour_ before the event. And even _then_ we don’t tell mom, and we threaten to murder anyone who blabs to her -- and I mean while brandishing knives. Then we tell mom about it FIVE MINUTES before the event. No! Someone _else_ tells her! I don’t want her crying all over me for five minutes.

“We also...”

“Louise.”

“... make sure they don’t tell her where it’s happening, or...”

“Louise!” Rudy covers my mouth with one hand and tenderly strokes my cheek with the other.

“ _Whmmmf? Whmmmf vv uuuc?_ ” I say.

“Thank you. Thank you. I love you. Thank you. I love you. Now please, shut up.”

Normally, this kind of impertinence would be a “convince me not to murder you in 50 words or less” offense. Under the circumstances, I let it go. 

He relinquishes his hold on my mouth. I smile meekly ( _Meekly!? Who am I?! What have I become?!)_ and say “OK.”

Rudy calmly awaits my usual death-threat. It fails to materialize, and he’s left contemplating my silence and my sweet smile, and he’s startled. Stunned. And in that moment, he sees my Nakedness.  
  
Obviously, he’s seen my _body_ a thousand times before. But in some manner I don't think either of us can parse, my complete defenselessness is evident in not just my face, but my entire being. My whole body, completely unguarded.

It’s as if he’s seeing me naked for the first time, and I suppose he is.

His jaw drops, and I swear I can actually _see_ the blood rush away from his brain for points south. He weeps with joy, but he also flashes his rakish, lopsided, pre-coitus “you have no idea what you’re in for now” grin. Only this time, I’m pretty sure he’s actually right.

He leaps on top of me and kisses me to within an inch of my life. He doesn’t usually initiate, but this time he does so with a confidence that’s so out of character I can’t help but laugh in astonishment. And appreciation.

But at the same time, he’s shaking; overwhelmed, I think, by the intensity of his feelings and his desire. He’s practically having a near-religious experience. I'd laugh that off, but now I'm as transfixed as him.

“I love you, Louise. And if I survive this little tryst without my brain or my heart exploding, I am going to marry you _so hard.”_

...and on that note, I think it’s time to fade out. I’m 17 now, too old to entertain Posterity’s pedo perverts. But if you think you’re going get a sex scene out of me, you’re delusional.

I’m a traditional girl, so not until we’re married.

(No, seriously, I’m never doing a sex scene. I’ll do nudity, as you’ve just observed, but that’s where I draw the line. You want smut, talk to my siblings.)

  
  


TINA

When you’re single, you’re invisible. Putting out “I’m available” vibes only surrounds you with a cloaking field. Flirty talk becomes a cipher - “she just said she wants to fuck me all night long. I wonder what she means by that?” You go to cuddle parties and wind up curled up on the couch with the freaking _dog!_

But the moment you get a boyfriend, suddenly everyone’s got x-ray glasses, every boy you meet interprets “hi” as “I’m totally into you and I’m willing to prove it with sex,” and no one invites you to cuddle parties anymore; they invite you to orgies.

I’m not complaining, particularly since, after a 30-day trial period, which he passed with flying colors, Mac and I decided we were no more monogamous than anyone else we knew, and that I, in particular, wasn’t nearly as experienced as I deserved to be, and what with one thing and another, well, we live with Susmita, Jodi, and the Lara twins now.

The twins.

Grant and Dean are... come on, Tina, you’re a writer, you can do this... they’re... weird.

_Oh, good job, Tina. Worthy of Oates -- not Joyce Carol; Daryl Hall’s partner. The one who didn’t even write songs._

You know what? Fine. Show, don’t tell. 

It’s about 11 am, and Sus and I have been sleeping in. She's still out cold, curled up in a happy ball, her head on my chest. We don’t have a thing going - we’re both open-minded, but straight as a board. 

I’ve been up for a few minutes now, and much as I hate to disturb her, I really need to use the bathroom.

Our guys woke around dawn and left our respective sides, careful not to wake us. Last night our guys were Mac and Dean, though in this case, it was Mac by Sus’s side and Dean by mine.

Nothing “happened” last night. Well, not in this bed. We very rarely have group scenes, as it turns out. But we do generally _sleep_ in groups. It’s transcendently cozy and happy-making. 

Over the last week, Mac has been focused romantically on Susmita, and I've been going through one of my occasional Dean phases. Grant is in a Jodi phase, and vice versa, and they’re both in a cocooning-in-the-attic bedroom phase. Which is convenient because, since Mac and I moved in, having the entire permanent population of the household in a single bed has become sadly impractical.

I’ve been lobbying to change to a Gene’s-room-type setup: two king mattresses side by side; but Sus and Jodi are in love with the fourposter bed, and they don’t make those frames in “beyond king-size.”

As I’ve taken pains to point out to them, we have a few very talented carpenters in town, and I’m sure one of them could build a nice double-king frame in this style. An eightposter. Actually, a sixposter - posts at each corner, plus two at the midpoint.

And of course, there's my larger point that just maybe, having Grant, Dean, Susmita, Mac, Me, and Jodi cuddled up together - with room for one or two more close friends, would be worth giving up a bedframe they love. But so far, it's been a non-starter

With that tiny annoyance to focus on, I can bring myself to disturb Susmita. But it’s an annoyance, not hostility, so I still attempt to slip away as carefully as possible, and not wake her.

It seems to work. She's still snoring gently. But as I reach the door, she murmurs “you’re fun to cuddle with, T. We can switch off with the boys, but let's always keep them on the outside and share the middle.”

That’s really sweet, though I have to admit it makes me just a tiny bit uncomfortable. Obviously, I'm not even remotely homophobic, or I wouldn’t cuddle happily with a girl - sometimes naked - every night. But if she’s developing an attraction to me, it could be awkward.

“Works for me,” I say.

I make my way down the hall to the bathroom. Before addressing my now positively indignant bladder - gotta remind it who’s boss - I examine myself critically in the mirror, which has become a habit I’m not entirely comfortable with. I have nothing to prove, dammit.

But at least I don't linger over it anymore. And as is usually the case these days, I like what I see: my hair, recently shortened to a tight bob, is wildly disheveled - a neat trick at this length - and damn sexy. It’s a good look for me. I didn’t realize how much my comparatively big hair - a style I’d worn most of my life - was undermining my sense of adulthood. 

The face beneath the bob has settled into an adult demeanor as well. Confident and at ease. Maybe it’s the constant validation from multiple romantic partners who appreciate me as a person _and_ find me really really hot. In fact, there's this one guy who, nine months after declaring his love for me after a single tryst, hasn’t changed his mind. He has, in fact, made it clear that while he wasn't technically proposing, he’s ready to discuss it whenever I am. 

If by September 14, our anniversary, I haven’t come up with a good reason not to, _I’m_ going to propose to _him_. 

It’s in the air. Rudy confided to me last week that he planned to ask Louise to marry him and, well, see above. The twins proposed to Susmita last month, but “no pressure.” She’s giving it serious consideration, though she’s skeptical about the institution of marriage itself. 

Meanwhile, Jodi, in a halting but moving speech last week over dinner, made it clear that she wants to marry all of us - or, more accurately, she wants us all to marry each other. 

I’d love to establish polygamy as an official option in the New World. As it was with marriage equality, which, after centuries of denial, squeaked in under the wire in this country, less than a decade before The End, it’s about damn time. 

I’m not sure how to combine the desire to embrace the group marriage idea and simultaneously have an old-fashioned dyadic marriage to Mac. Can a group marriage encompass sub-marriages? There’s no official answer; maybe it's our job to determine it and write it into law before someone else less sympathetic to our way of life does. 

Maybe, as Susmita maintains, it's none of the Law's business in the first place.

Crap, where was I? Oh, right. Here, looking at myself in the mirror.

I think one effect of having my love-life issue handled (and then some) is the freeing up of like 90 percent of my RAM. And as a result, I’ve become really non-linear. Being in a group compounds the effect, but you won't hear me complaining.

Anyway, content - no, downright happy - with the girl in the mirror, I move along, take care of my toiletries, shower, and get back in my nightgown Getting dressed can wait, possibly until tomorrow. 

These days I can hang around our beautiful lakeside Victorian by the park for a week at a time without getting dressed beyond pajamas. I’ve even spent days at a time observing our clothing-optional policy by choosing the no-clothes option - that’s how comfortable I am in this place, with these people. 

But currently, I’m in nightgown mode. I upstairs to the bedroom I share with Mac, throw last night's nightgown in the hamper, slip into a fresh one, and head downstairs for a late breakfast.

The twins are there, eating their lunch. To set the scene: there are two identical heavyset Honduran guys (with inexplicably WASPish first names) in their late 20s, sitting at opposite ends of our large dining room table, taking occasional bites of their - I kid you not - Lutefisk (Lutefisk!) and grits (grits!) (with lutefisk!), and at the same time, absentmindedly playing ping-pong with one hand, not missing a single volley, alternating bites of Lutefisk with glances at their reading materials, and not looking up from either activity to, say, track the trajectory of any small, white projectiles that might be careening toward them.

Between bites, Grant is speed-reading his way through a pile of old computer manuals - at the moment, one for the Commodore-64 - and occasionally laughing, heartily. Dean is turning his pages more slowly, taking his time reading through a Bloom County collection, and also laughing periodically. 

After observing their activity for a full minute, I realize their laughs are timed to the rhythm of their ping-pong match, but with a complex syncopation.

That’s what I’m talking about. Is there an adjective to describe this behavior or the kind of person who exhibits it? I’ve read through two thesauruses, and all I've got is “preternatural.” 

“Hey, Tina,” says Dean. “Pull up a chair and grab a paddle.”

Yeah, sure.

“Sorry, this is way outside my skill set. I can’t hit a ping pong ball with a paddle if I’m _serving_ , much less play an actual game; much, _much_ less a three-way.”

Grant sprouts a truly wicked grin. “You’ve never had a problem with three-ways before.” 

Oy. “Well, I guess I walked right into that one. Excuse me, I gotta make some breakfast.”

“There’s more Lutefisk and grits if you want it,” suggests Grant, his mild Honduran accent lending a surreality to the already absurd sentence.

“Thanks, but I’m on a strict no-corrosive-cleaning-solutions diet.” Lutefisk is - I am not making this up - dried cod marinated in lye for two days. 

Before your brain explodes: the perfectly reasonable explanation for the existence of this recipe is the lack of deposits of salt to use for food-preservation in ancient Norway. There is, however, no reasonable explanation for the recipe persisting one millisecond into the modern era, except possibly as the genteel, socialist nation’s sole remaining post-Viking-era display of macho. “You’ve got nukes? Bitch, please - we eat _this_ shit.”

None of which explains the twins pairing the Nordic... let’s just say “delicacy” with good ol’ down-home suthrun grits; though to be fair, they’re _hominy_ grits, made from corn treated with an alkali, so I guess it’s a theme. 

“Suit yourself,” says Dean.

French toast. I need french toast. I wasn’t planning on it, it just hit me like a vision, possibly because it’s the least Lutefisk-like thing you can possibly prepare. 

The main ingredient, bread, is not the ubiquitous commodity it once was, but we’re getting by. We have fields of wheat and rye, and while it takes several steps and some patience, you can capture the yeast already present in flour - or even the air. 

But creating flour on a large scale is trickier than you might think. (Believe it or not, I'm still on topic. Wait for it.) At first, our volunteer farmers drove truck-fulls of harvested wheat to Cooper’s Mill, a historic site about 70 miles away in Morris County that had been carefully maintained and was still perfectly functional. But the schlep got old pretty quickly, and about a year ago, we built a mill of our own, much closer in, by a nearby brook.

And by “we,” I mean, mostly, Grant and Dean.

They had absolutely no experience or education in designing or building any kind of physical structure - the area of their (nearly fathomless) expertise being computer programming - so they had to teach themselves.

They studied every book they could find on the subject - that took a week. Then they found an appropriate location and surveyed the site to get a precise elevation map and determine the composition of the earth under the topsoil. With that information in hand, they fired up their CAD software and designed the building and mechanism from scratch, using the principles they’d absorbed the previous week.

They worked behind a closed, locked door, and would not show us their design at any point. And they encrypted the file just in case our curiosity got the best of us, which it did, so, well played.

Then, leaving behind a cryptically “reassuring” note, they disappeared for about five days. Susmita was frantic - the remaining four of us slept every one of those nights in a big cuddle pile, doing everything we could do to comfort her.

That kind of turned into a few of our rare group scenes, which were delightful -- particularly for Mac, the only male present -- but I'm not sure how much Susmita got out of Mac's and Jodi's tender attention. She clearly appreciated it, but she was having a kind of continuous, 5-day out of body experience.

When the boys returned, they were hauling an enormous 3D printer, the property of a late architect and visionary based in Chicago (thus their long absence) who had planned to use it and others like it to print out prefab housing for the poor, one large section at a time, completing a house a day per printer. 

This is not your grandfather’s tabletop 3D printer, with its monochromatic ABS filaments. It's the size of our guesthouse -- they'd needed an eighteen-wheeler to get it home -- and can work with a proprietary concrete mixture, various plastics, carbon fiber, fiberglass, and a few other materials I can’t recall because I’d never heard of them before the twins rattled off the list for us.

Grant and Dean spent a day at home resting and talking (and other gerunds) Susmita down from her five days of sheer panic.

When she was asleep, they spent an hour crying on everyone else’s shoulders. Chicago had been... rough. Thousands of twisted bodies - human and animal, adult and child, dead by plague or gunshot, in the streets, in doorways, in cars - some parked, some driven through store windows. And worse, bodies hanging from streetlights by nooses - God herself only knows why. And this was in the _suburbs_ where, luckily, the guy kept his magical machine. If they’d had to go into the city itself...

The next morning, they hauled the printer to their chosen, undisclosed location by the brook and, with the help of two burly guys and a burly gal we didn’t know, printed out and built the mill over the course of two days.

The morning after the work was complete, they had a private unveiling, just for the rest of us in the household and a few carefully chosen guests. I’d invited my siblings, and got special permission for each of them to bring a significant other. 

(Gene had to do a few rounds of coin flips. Scott won.) 

It wasn’t technically an unveiling, actually, It was an unblindfolding, because the mill was too big to cover up. So we all drove to a spot close to, but not in view of, the mill. Then they had us put on blindfolds and walk from that point. When we got to the mill, we uncovered our eyes on the count of three.

There were ten or fifteen seconds of complete silence. The first few seconds were our eyes adjusting to the light; the rest were our _minds_ adjusting to what they were seeing.

Then there was an explosion of cheers and hoots, “well dones” and “holy shits.”

How can I describe to you what I saw?

It was as if the Tin Man and Tik-Tok had had a child, and I. M. Pei had used it as the inspiration for the design of an ultra-modern office building for executive Oompa-Loompas.

No -- it looked like a “tiny home,” built out of the contents of the Crate and Barrel kitchen department had been assimilated by the Borg

No -- it looked like Skynet’s Hobbiton embassy.

No -- it...

It was 35 feet tall and largely conical. The exterior was composed of two- and three-foot square panels of clear fiberglass and silvery brushed metal, distributed seemingly randomly. Toward the apex, the panels became smaller, and narrower on top.

At the very top was a three-foot-tall blue cone of the same brushed metal material, with a clear, red, eight-inch diameter glass sphere resting on its point.

Delightfully, whenever a strong wind blew, the cone flipped back like a Pez dispenser and expelled an unfolding weather vane, complete with a stylized, “pixel art” rooster.

And on one side, dipping into the brook, was a water wheel. The design was fairly traditional, except that it was made of clear, blue-tinted plexiglass that changed hue as light passed through it at different angles. 

(I later learned that at noon on the day of summer solstice, for a full minute, and only at that exact time, the sunlight would hit the specially designed center of the wheel at just the right angle to make the colors cycle through the entire spectrum, swimming through the water wheel in waves and pulses, _and_ project the Water symbol from Avatar: The Last Airbender onto the brook.)

Plus, as it turns out, the thing is a working gristmill. Who’da thunk?

Well, Susmita, for one, apparently. Regarding her love for the boys at first sight, Sus once explained “I knew the moment I saw them in the distance that they were tech geniuses. You can just tell that kind of thing.”

Speak for yourself, Sus. The only thing I can tell about a guy from a distance is the quality of his butt. 

The boys say basically the same thing about Susmita. “The moment our eyes met,” Dean told me, “I knew she could do integral calculus in her head.”

“Oh, God. I hate to think what you see when _we_ lock eyes,” I said. “I'm almost innumerate. You must --”

“When I look in your eyes,” as he was at that very moment, “I see an infinite capacity to love and be loved. Whether that’s better or worse than being good at math is for you to decide.”

Oh, that’s the other thing about Grant and Dean. When they’re not in deep geek mode, they. are. smooth. No, Smoooooth, with a capital “S” and five “o’s.” Dean, in particular, can go from zero to Mack Daddy Latin Lover in under ten seconds. Either of those chubby, geeky men can put down their copy of 2600 Magazine, whip their glasses off dramatically, and make me weak in the knees with a single look. Susmita says she lost her virginity 10 minutes after she met them. I’m glad she didn’t say anything about it at the time; I’d have gone out of my mind with jealousy.

Anyway, that’s Grant and Dean Lara. I hope I’ve managed to communicate an accurate sense of just how strange and wonderful they are. 

Back to now. I’m cracking eggs on the side of a bowl for batter when a little, lilting voice out of nowhere says “good morning,” startling me, causing me to slam the egg in my hand down on the edge of the bowl much too hard. The bowl flips over, sending its contents flying at my chest, splattering my nightgown; startled again, I let out an “AAAA!” as the bowl, which I instinctively batted away, hits the wall and shatters.

Jodi - I’d recognize her voice anywhere - is laughing her ass off. 

I want to run over to the stove and grab a hand towel off its handle to wipe off my nightgown. I also want to head in the opposite direction and deal with the many, many shards of ceramic bowl on the floor. The two urges cancel each other out, and all I can do is turn to face Jodi, who is sitting at the kitchen table, working on a big bowl of grits and giggling uncontrollably.

I try to glare at her with my most pissed off Angry Face, but... File Not Found, and I start to laugh along with her.

“When did _you_ get here?” I ask.

“Ten minutes before you did,” she squeaks. Her voice has lost its mouse-like quality over the years (one could say the same about her entire personality, actually) but she’s laughing, and breath control is an issue.

“Oh. OK. Duh.” I say. 

In my defense, it’s a _big_ kitchen.

Not to go off on a tangent, but this place is incredible. A huge, stately Victorian with _eight_ bedrooms and _six_ baths (two with vintage clawfoot tubs and one with a cathedral-ceilinged shower bigger than my folks’ master bedroom -- a stone-tiled grotto with a dozen sources of water at different heights, a large reservoir area that is essentially a built-in hot tub... that shower complex has hosted many a sexy evening).

It's set on four private, wooded acres (heh. Listen to my real estate listing-speak) with a creek running through them and little wooden bridges over the creek. The previous owners had been here for almost 20 years, and who can blame them, but Zillow’s last “Zestimate” of the property’s value was $1.7 million, or a mere $13,600/month rent. 

But, you know, supply and demand...

And speaking of demand, here’s a sobering thought: it looks like a lot fewer people survived the plague than anticipated by the CDC. I mean, by an order of magnitude.

Part of that disparity is collateral damage - people dying not by the plague itself, but due to the breakdown in infrastructure (unsafe travel conditions, unimaginable amounts of rotting biomass causing horrible disease by themselves, lack of medical care), and probably a huge rate of suicide driven by sheer grief and horror.

But even if you factor that in, reports from many people who have traveled widely in the last three years looking for survivors (including one heroic individual who passed through here in his continuing effort to do a freaking _census!)_ , suggest that the 2% immunity rate was overly optimistic, maybe even plain old wishful thinking by the CDC, because the actual rate seems to be closer to about one-tenth of that, which, allowing for the huge inaccuracies inherent in working with educated guesses, incomplete statistics, and rules of thumb, would put the world population at something somewhere between 10 and 15 million.

So, the population of Pennsylvania, a state of 46,000 square miles, spread out over the entire planet (200 million square miles of landmass). Even if you allow for huge tracts o’ land that are uninhabitable (much of Siberia, or the Sahara, or Antarctica), that’s 20 square miles per person. Or, as is clearly the case, a bunch of tiny population centers separated by a whole lotta empty. 

I’m not sure what to do with that information. Wikipedia tells me that our little town has the minimum population necessary to prevent genetic drift, so we could perpetuate the human race by ourselves if necessary. 

I guess that’s reassuring, on one level. Still, since I found this out, those reality-check moments have become a lot more frequent again, and a lot more devastating, and I think I’m having one now, so I should probably hand you off to Jodi for the next chapter.


	2. Silver Linings

JODI

I hate saying this. It makes me wonder if I’m a psychopath. At best, a ghoul. It seems like literally the worst thought a human being could have. But it’s one I have every day. I can’t help it. Some things are just true. And as painful as it is to think it, forcing it out of my head permanently would leave me as twisted as I was before. 

Alright. Out with it.

The plague is the best thing that ever happened to me. 

No, to clarify:  _ surviving  _ the plague is the best thing that ever happened to me. Not because it didn’t make me inchoate with rage and insane with grief to watch my friends die all around me. Not because I don’t weep for all that’s been lost. And certainly not because the knowledge that seven and a half billion people, essentially the entire human race, died horribly, agonizingly, in a single year didn’t drive me to near-psychosis. 

As Tina has remarked, there are no words available to adequately describe what that year was like. We’ll all be therapizing each other for the rest of our lives attempting to deal with it, and the best we can possibly hope - and strive - for is not to retreat into madness.

But there is the undeniable fact that at the end of that year, I and my mother - two people so phobic about germs and contamination that we were terrified every waking moment of coming into contact with the bug that would kill us - were alive.

I was a person afraid to sit in a fucking  _ chair _ if I hadn’t sprayed it down with disinfectant. I carried hand sanitizer in both pockets and brandished them like pistols. There wasn’t a particle in the universe that wasn’t out to get me.

I was a basket case.

Then a contaminant, probably one from the stars that there was no way anyone on earth could be immune to, killed seven and a half billion people, almost every human being... but not me; and not my mom, who thought you could catch necrosis from sound waves.

What  _ else  _ was I immune to? What could planet earth possibly dish out that I couldn’t take? Clearly, I was immortal. 

That wave of hubris passed quickly enough, leaving me to contemplate the truth: I’d been a psycho. And it was so clear now: my father had died when I was 3 from a minor injury that had become infected. Obviously, that was the genesis of my mother’s phobia. A phobia she instilled in me. By the time I started preschool I was, as they say in the military, FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Now I fear nothing - at least nothing it’s not reasonable to fear. I’m... fine. I’m normal. I have a life, close friends, cuddle buddies, lovers. 

And I owe it all to that goddamn, motherfucking, evil, horrific, mind mangling, world-destroying plague.

So, I’ve got raging survivor’s guilt, nightmares, and frequent down-the-rabbit-hole fugue-states my friends call Reality Check Moments.

But we all have all of those, all of the time. Literally everyone. 

It’s simply a fact of life in the brave new world. It’s not unusual to see random people on the street frozen, staring into the middle distance, at nothing, deep in their own minds, working on finding their way out. 

Often these states are triggered in conversation, and you come to and see the person you were talking to also phasing back into reality, and you both say “you, too?” at the same time, and you nod, and you laugh just a little bit, but sadly. Then, if you’re close enough friends, and sometimes even if you aren’t, you hold each other and weep gently, silently on each other’s shoulders.

I’ve done that with complete strangers. I believe the act of surviving has made us better people. More open, more compassionate. And sweet Jesus - or whoever - I hope I’m right. I...

Tina rushes onto the verandah, where I’ve been sitting, watching the ducks on the lake, and gasps “Millie! It’s Millie! She’s back! And she’s...” Tina loses her words. “Get in the car.”

I don’t ask any questions - she’s clearly in no shape to communicate - but I’m mystified. On the rare occasions when old friends and neighbors thought to be dead return, there’s a celebration. But Tina is distraught. Freaking out. What on earth is going on?

I always liked Millie. We got along, probably because we were both out of our gourds. Somehow, we  _ got _ each other. Sure, I knew she was Louise Belcher’s stalker, but I overlooked that - I barely knew Louise at the time.

I jump into Tina’s Tesla - they’re pretty common around here since their MSRP dropped to a half-hour drive to the closest Tesla warehouse dollars, but I still feel really cool tooling around in one.

We’re only a mile from Tina’s old place, so it’s about two minutes before we pull up, hop out, and I gasp.

Millie is sitting in a wheelchair. She’s gaunt and grimacing - probably because her limbs, despite the braces holding them in more or less normal position, are clearly recovering - or failing to recover - from being twisted and broken grotesquely, as if she’d been...

I turn away, sobbing and horrified. I hear her saying, in a raspy voice “...Danny found me in Passaic, lying on the ground moaning - it was all I could manage, but in my mind, I was screaming my throat bloody. Bloodier.

“His first instinct was to put me out of my misery, but he realized as he approached me, that he’d never seen a crawler in this condition, just lying on the ground,  _ on its back _ ,  _ motionless _ . Every crawler he’d watched die crawled until they no longer had the strength, then lay there, on their bellies, twitching until the moment they died.

“He asked what happened to me, how I’d gotten these injuries; I told him I’d gotten them the same way any crawler does. Then he just looked at me for, I don’t know, it felt like forever, but it was probably about 20 seconds; I don’t blame him. 

“But he’s an EMT, and his “ask questions later” instinct kicked in. He asked when I’d gotten ill, and there was no way I could forget because it was on my fucking birthday, July seventh. He told me it was August first...” 

Millie’s speech has become a dry croak. “Dan, could you get me a...” but her friend is already there with a glass of ice water. “Thanks, sweetie,” she says.

I’ve gathered myself, and join Tina in the small crowd around Millie. I notice that the small girl I’d seen standing next to her, cheeks wet, stroking Millie’s hair, is Louise. 

Tina, voice shaking, body trembling, asks the one question we all most want and most fear to have answered. “Millie, when you... when you were... crawling, were you...” she can barely speak. “Were you conscious? Aware? Were you in there, sufferi--” Tina loses her voice, but she’s asked her question.

There is a painfully long pause. Finally, Milie asks, “The truth?” -- answering the question with her own. It’s a punch in the gut.  _ Our families. Our friends. Seven billion strangers. _

My head goes all swimmy, and I hear myself moan the way Tina used to - uuuuuuuhhhhhhhh...

Tina slumps to the ground next to me, sliding down the plate glass front window of her family’s restaurant and hitting the sidewalk with an audible thump. I hear her gasp “Oh God, Millie, Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m...” As I sit down next to her and hold her -- the tiny bit of comfort I can offer, I hear her whisper “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy...”

I don’t have the gall, the temerity, to murmur comforting words to her. It’s  _ not _ OK. It’s not  _ going to be _ alright _. _ It’s never going to be alright, ever again. We’d all told ourselves - based on no empirical data whatsoever - that once a person with the plague was crawling across the landscape, they were gone. Mindless. Nobody home.

Because the alternative was unthinkable. 

Because the alternative makes the death toll - seven billion lives - an abstraction. A statistic.

We’d convinced ourselves that they didn’t suffer. They suffered. Beyond imagining.

I look up and see two dozen people struggling to deal with something actually worse than what we’d thought was the Worst Thing Ever. Some are weeping quietly. Some are praying. Some are clinging to each other for dear life. 

Some, like Tina now, are sobbing uncontrollably. Inconsolably. Tina is clinging to me, head on my shoulder, nearly screaming. I notice that I’m doing the same. 

_ And there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. _

I’m not exactly a Bible scholar. I never paid much attention in church; I was always more focused on the thoughts of all of the butts that had preceded mine on the pew, and wondering if the cleaning staff used a strong enough disinfectant, and assuming not.

But that’s a phrase that sticks with you; I just never expected to see it played out. Or to be so unrighteous as to deserve it. What were my sins? They must have been some doozies.

Thank God I’m an atheist. 

The weeping and gnashing goes on for at least a minute before Millie yells “Everyone, listen. Listen!” 

We do our best to calm down.

“Look,” she continues, “I  _ survived  _ the plague. The sickness. There was something different about how my body and brain handled it. I had some sort of resistance. That may be why I was conscious through the whole thing. We just don’t know.” 

Fifty damp, streaming eyes flash with hope for just a moment... then reject it. AT least 20 heads shake. 

_ No. No more hope. Hope failed us. It’s not OK, It’s not going to be alright. It’s the end of the world, worst-case scenario.  _

_ Fuck hope. _

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Louise draped over Millie, sobbing, embracing her childhood nemesis. It’s probably hurting Millie very badly, but she endures it, letting Louise’s long-standing hatred of her wash away in a torrent of tears. 

Dammit, everything was fine. Most of us were happy and productive. Looking forward to a bright future, proud of all we’d accomplished so far. Life was good.

Then Millie shows up and the world ends all over again. 

Jesus God.

...

I- I- I can’t do this anymore. I mean, seriously, this had to be my first one? Anyone want to take over?

  
  


GENE

I... no, I can’t.

  
  


JODI

It’s going to...

  
  


GENE

Be OK? Really?

  
  


JODI

...

  
  


GENE

I didn’t think so. Just... take care of yourself, OK. And Tina. Take care of Tina.

  
  


LOUISE

I can do it. Hold on. Gimme a second...

...

OK, gimme like a minute. No, two.

  
  


JODI

Take your time. Posterity can wait.

[20 minutes later]

LOUISE

Millie Millie Millie.

Fucking Millie.

Of all the missing people I’d prayed would turn up again, like Jess, Millie... Millie didn’t even make the list. I didn’t want her to be dead. I just hoped she was alive somewhere  _ else _ . Somewhere she’d stay.

I don’t know why my hostility outlasted the plague and so much of the aftermath. But you’ve got to understand, Millie was... Well, it was as if the little voice inside my head - the crazy one, the one that told me to burn things - had crawled out through my ear, rappelled down my little green dress, sprouted two legs and a white-girl ‘fro and insisted on sitting next to me in homeroom. And math class. And on the bus on field trips. 

She made me crazy, in that sitcom plot way that made it look as if it was all me, that I was making it all up. 

Eventually, things settled down for a while and we reached a certain... crap, what’s the word? “Agreement”? No. “Understanding”? Hell no. Dammit. What’s the word?

TINA

[sniffling, still in tears] Entente.

  
  


LOUISE

That’s it. Thanks. God, I wish I'd gotten in some high school before the world ended.

Anyway, we achieved a certain entente, after Millie found a way to make her insanity - and, to be fair, her intelligence and perception - useful. But it didn’t last. As she got older, she just got better at being a psychopath, and at getting under my skin. And at getting me in trouble. 

She even figured out how to weaponize her own puberty, when it hit a couple years before mine. She went after Rudy, and confused the hell out of him. That was actually the last straw. 

One day, in eighth grade, she dressed up as me - she’d managed to find an identical pair of bunny ears on Amazon. She hid in the shadows under the bleachers so all Rude could make out was her silhouette, gave him this “come hither” gesture, and got him to make out with her for about 10 seconds before Rudy realized it was her.

Rudy told me about it over lunch. He saw how angry it made me, and insisted it was no big deal. But I can always read him like a Big Golden book. He was hurt. Bad. 

I tracked Millie down after school and basically beat the shit out of her. I mean, she got in a few blows - I went home with a black eye and a ton of bruises. But I demolished her.

It wasn’t out of jealousy. I was still pre-pubescent, and if some other girl had taken a shine to Rudy, at that point it would have been a relief. 

So it wasn’t that. But she had toyed with Rudy’s emotions. He was deeply in love with me, but I wasn’t ready biologically to even  _ want  _ to lock lips with the poor kid. And she’d led him to believe, for 10 glorious seconds, that his wait was over. That I was ready, That I felt the same way about him as he did about me. It was the happiest moment of his life.

Then he realized what was going on. The horror, the revulsion, was bad enough. He later compared it to that scene in The Shining with the lady in the shower in room 223. It was his way of laughing it off. But she’d done far worse than trick him into a kiss. She’d crushed his heart. 

That was a capital offense. And breaking her stupid nose and scratching her stupid face and kicking her stupid shins and ripping those bunny ears off her head and shoving them down her stupid throat was worth all the suspension and detention time, all the hours wasted sitting in the offices of counselors and shrinks and social workers, and even the forced “apology” and handshake. 

A handshake. What did they think this was? Little league? “Good game. Good game. Good game.” Well, little league hockey, maybe.

Her parents put out a restraining order on me, forbidding me to come within 50 feet of her other than in school if it was unavoidable.

Fine with me. But, of course,  _ I _ was the one who needed the restraining order, because Millie broke it before the ink was dry on it.

But that was all... before.

The Millie sitting across from me in Booth 4 is nearly unrecognizable. Not just physically, though that’s very hard to get past, and at times painful just to look at. But she’s also present and coherent. Still weird, but living on the same planet we are; no longer crazy as a loon. I’d guess she currently rates about 0.25 loon units. A quarter-loon.

“It’s so sweet of you to be nice to me, Lou. I was kind of a nightmare, wasn’t I?”

I’d rather not get on that topic, but I’m not gonna lie to her, either. “Yeah. It was pretty bad.”

She bows her head - clearly a painful gesture in her condition. I’m a monster. “But you were a child, Millie. And it’s not your fault you were mentally ill. You were, right? I’m pretty sure that’s a safe assumption.” Millie nods. “And it’s not your fault that either your meds weren’t working or your parents didn’t make sure you took them, or whatever was going on. I don’t... well, I’ll be honest, I did hold a grudge For a long time. Like until about half an hour ago. But...”

“But seeing me in this state, twisted and pathetic and in constant pain, you’re willing to take pity on me.”

She says this without the slightest hint of resentment. From her tone, she might have been saying “now that you’ve tried it, you like sushi.”

Dammit. “I don’t pity you, Millie. I just, I’m saying, I’m getting over myself. I wasn’t entirely fair to you - I mean, you drove me nuts, you did all kinds of inappropriate stuff. But you genuinely liked me, didn’t you, under all of that sick stuff. I think you really just wanted a friend and wanted it to be me. And I didn’t see that.” I bow  _ my _ head this time. I was such a little shit.

Millie, clearly choked up, says “you were a child too, Louise. And I  _ was _ a psychopath.”

I have to ask. “So, um, what changed?”

She laughs. “The fucking plague. I think. I mean, one of the few things scientists were able to determine about it is that it was a neuropathogen. It gets into the brain and fucks with the commands it sends to the rest of the body; the muscles and tendons - thus the twisted limbs. But it also wreaks havoc with the endocrine system, and it goes to town on parts of the brain that don’t manifest the interference physically. Most of the brain is affected, to one extent or another.

I’m still ruminating on the thought of Millie’s muscles and tendons betraying her, hurting her, breaking her. It may be over, but she has to live with the memory. Goddamn.

“The point is, I’m pretty sure it rewired me. I remember what it was like living in here” she raps her forehead gently with her fist “before. It’s nowhere near the same now. And I like what they’ve done with the place. Of course, the exterior needs some work...”

Dan, another ice water and a Bob’s turkey burger in hand (returning friends don’t have to have to win the raffle to get one), places them in front of Millie and sits next to her, smiling just a touch sadly. “I like the exterior just fine,” he says, stretching across the table so she doesn’t have to move her neck to receive his passionate kiss.

Holy shit, they’re lovers. I mean, good for her, she certainly deserves a hot boyfriend - and Danny is damn hot.  But also, good for him; most guys would not be able to see beyond her twisted frame, and the damage done to her otherwise rather lovely features by the sickness. She looks like the victim of a moderately severe stroke.

She’s also clearly somewhat limited in her range of movement, I wonder how they negotiate that in the sack. But that’s definitely none of my business.

“The plague drove me sane, Lou.”

I smirk. “-ise.”

Millie is nonplussed. “Huh?”

I do my best to twinkle. “You say ‘Lou,’ I say ‘-ise.’”

There’s a long pause in our conversation as she stares quizzically into space. Maybe I triggered a Reality Check Moment. God, I’m an idiot.

Life returns to her face. “Oh,” she says, brightly, “Right. That thing. You remember that?”

“I remember a lot of things. I think you were responsible for more ‘someday we’ll look back on this and laugh” moments than anyone I’ve ever known. I mean by a wide margin.”

Millie smiles, but her heart isn’t in it. “I’m sorry.”

Oh, man. “No, don’t apologize. We were children, remember? Right?” 

She nods almost imperceptibly. “Right.”

“Listen,” says Danny, standing, “Millie’s getting tired, we should probably go get in a nap back in the van.”

“Oh, crap, you think you have to protect her from me. That I’m upsetting her. Millie, I-”

“No, it’s not that. OK, maybe a little - but I know you’re not  _ trying  _ to upset her. Just the opposite.” He lifts Millie out of the booth.

“It’s OK, Lou. Ise,” says Millie, smiling. “This whole town is a giant minefield full of triggers for me. And I haven’t been active for this long at a stretch since before the... since before. I actually am getting tired.”

Fair enough, but I still feel like shit. “Well, at the very least you’re not going to sleep in a freaking van. We’ve got tons of beds and other soft surfaces in my place. Please tell me you’ll accept a little hospitality.”

“Thanks, Lou,” says Dan. “But before you accept, I should inform you that Millie sleeps on a very special bed - like a Craftmatic Adjustable on acid. And it’s very, very heavy. It’s going to take several large people with strong backs to get it out of the van safely, and unless you’ve got an elevator, it has to go on the ground floor.”

Dan still has Millie poised over the wheelchair and hasn’t moved to place her in it yet. Instead, he keeps her cradled in his arms in a seated position, her head on his shoulder, her mouth kissing his neck, a little peck every few seconds. This is clearly making them both very happy.

Eventually, he snaps out of it. “Oh. Heh. I should probably put you in your chair at some point.”

“No,” she coos, “You sit in the chair; I’ll sit on your lap.”

“Oh, get a room, you two,” I say. “Specifically, the main room on the ground floor next door. No privacy, but also no stairs.”

“Thanks,” they both say.

“If you want _privacy_ ,” I add, “you can carry her downstairs and through the door on the right. It’s vacant since my sister moved out.”

Dan is a little embarrassed. “Um, sure. Thanks. That’s... thanks,” he sputters. As he places Millie in her wheelchair, there is a moment when his back is turned to me, and he can’t see Millie’s face. She mouths the words “thank you!” and even manages a little thumbs-up which probably cost her.

As Dan wheels her out, and our personal history and stories follow in their wake, it all comes back.

_ She was completely conscious after the transition.  _

_ They all were.  _

_ Fuck hope. _

God damn you, Millie. Damn you for not lying. 


	3. How Soon is Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little backstory on Jodi, some weird and disturbing thoughts from Louise on temporal mechanics and the nature of consciousness, and an intriguing development from Susmita. 
> 
> And another Song title chapter title.

JODI  
Is it okay if I take another pass at this? I kinda got thrown for a loop there, last chapter.

  
  


JESSICA

Wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s all yours.

  
  


JODI

Thanks.

So, as seems to be going around in one form or another, the plague - or at least surviving it - did great things for me. I lost my germ phobia and gained a life. There was just so much of it lying around, like the ammo you pick up from the bodies of the guys you kill in a first-person shooter. Now _there’s_ a ghoulish thought.

There’s a certain sideways truth to that idea, though. There are vastly fewer people and therefore less competition for resources. Plus, there’s the matter of the new normal where social and sexual mores are concerned. 

Most families have been decimated, despite immunity to the plague having an inheritable genetic factor. So families of choice have become the norm. And with the near-extinction of the nuclear family comes another new normal: non-monogamy. Maybe part of it is a procreative instinct - gotta get those population stats back up; fuck anything that moves!

But mostly I think that we’re rebuilding society from the ground up, and we’re starting from where we were culturally in the 21st century - not, say, the 14th - as the basis. 

Sexuality? Stay away from the children, but otherwise, go for it. Gender? You do you. Marriage? It’s a civil contract. An agreement. Write one up that works for you - particularly for the sake of the care of any children, putative or otherwise, that may be affected.

Want a religious wedding? Fine. If you want to go clear the bodies of the deluded afflicted out of the church and clean up a bit, by all means, Jesus it up, or whatever. 

A year ago, in that spirit, I moved in with Susmita and the boys. At first, I thought I’d be a third - well, fourth - wheel, but a few hours after I moved in, I found out that poly relationships can also be open, and with Dean and Susmita’s blessings, Grant took me to his bedroom. 

At first, I was terrified. And not the usual first-time jitters. Back in my phobic days, once I hit puberty, sex was just another thing to be psychotically afraid of. All that touching, and parts _going into other parts!_ And all those... _shudder..._ substances. 

All the progress I’d made, the fearlessness I’d acquired, went out the window. All Grant had done so far was kiss my hand. But now the fact that I hadn’t whipped out my hand sanitizer immediately afterward, and that he was now _holding_ my hand as we climbed the stairs to his room, was driving me to distraction. I was shaking like a leaf.

Grant - nothing if not a gentleman - reassured me, though not about what I was actually freaking out about. 

“There’s no need to be nervous. And we don’t have to do anything, anyway. You can back out at any time, no matter what’s happening. You can back out _now_ if you want. But I hope you don’t because it would be really nice to be close to you for a little while, no matter what we do or don’t do.”

Escape! My blood pressure dropped to normal immediately. I was still kind of freaked out about my hand, but I reminded myself that the plague didn’t get me. I was totally badass.

“I- I think I should... I mean, I’m really...” _a badass_ . _What was my goddamn problem?_

I jumped up to his stair, and, at 5’1”, still had to stand on tiptoes to kiss the bejeezus out of him. My first kiss. I wasn’t very good at it. But we stood there on those stairs (he stepped down one so I wouldn’t get a crick on my neck) until I had an associate’s degree in the subject. By the end of the day, my bachelor’s was framed and hanging on my wall. A year later? Well, you may address me as _Dr._ Jodi Hatch.

It’s been so liberating. The plague, God help me, opened the gate. But falling into bed with Grant: that’s what it took to let my horses run free, to paraphrase Prince Rogers Nelson. Of whom I was also terrified most of my life, for some reason.

I can’t even imagine how the old me would have reacted to seeing the new me propose that we - me, the twins, Susmita, Tina, and Mac - all marry each other. The thought of kissing another human being filled me with anxiety; I think the proposal would have made my poor little head explode. 

And not just because of my fear of human contact. I was raised in a religious household, and while I’m not religious myself (a strict Catholic upbringing is practically a fast-lane to atheism in the long run), that conditioning stays with you. My mom (a very nice person with some huge blind spots) still hasn’t gotten over Obergfell v. Hodges. The thought of her daughter being in a group marriage might literally kill her. 

As far as she knows, I live with 5 roommates in a nice big house. Blab to her, and I’ll... well, I’ll send Louise to cut you.

  
  


LOUISE

Just say the word. I also offer a package deal that includes a nice, big, juicy slap.

  
  


JODI

Noted.

But I guess what I’m saying is that more than my body has been liberated, living here. The petals of my mind have also been opened up.

  
  


LOUISE

Ew.

  
  


JODI

Deal with it. 

So I haven’t gotten an answer yet, but I’m patient. It’s hard enough for one person to make that decision. Reaching a consensus could take a while. Either way, I know I’m loved and valued. And I have access to an almost infinite supply of hugs and cuddles and other stuff that would have given the old me an aneurism. 

\----------

Sus and I have replaced Dan and Millie in the seat across from Louise in Booth 4, and Rudy is by her side, doing his best to comfort her. Today has been... a lot. 

“She's right you know,” he says, massaging her bunny ears, which Louise reacts to as if she has nerve endings in them. “There’s no reason to assume that the other crawlers had the same experience she did. Her body fought it off, and it's a neurological disorder. Her brain is different. Heh. Always was, wasn’t it?”

Louise is in no mood for levity. “Don’t make jokes. How can you joke? There’s nothing funny about this. You’re a sick puppy, you know that?”

“Lou, it doesn’t matter. It’s over,” says Susmita. “They’re not suffering anymore. Except for Millie, actually.” 

“No!” Louise stands and pounds the table, “It’s never over. Nothing ever is. Everything that ever happened to anyone is still happening.”

Oh, crap, she’s losing it. “I don’t understand,” I say. “How does that... I mean... What the hell are you talking about?”

Louise lifts her head and stares daggers at me. For a moment, I feel like I’m in physical danger, then her expression softens a bit. 

Her voice is hoarse with dread and, to hazard a guess, foreshadowing. “You don’t get it, do you?” 

I shake my head. Slowly.

“Ugh. How can you not see it? Look, when is it?”

I’m lost. “You mean the time? The date?”

Louise growls, then manages to regain her composure and says “No. I mean, what do you call this moment. The moment we’re currently experiencing. The present. I’m talking very basic here.”

“You mean ‘now’? That’s the word you’re looking for?”

“Right. Thank you. And when is it ‘now’?”

Lost again. “I’m not following--”

“IT’S ALWAYS NOW! We live in ‘now.’ That’s all there is. There’s no past, no future. Just an infinite chain of nows, each... stuck in amber. It’s still 9/11. It’s still World War Two. It’s still the Dark Ages - for the people who were there.”

Oh, boy. This is bad. I kind of understand what she’s getting at, and if we were lying in her room, stoned, staring at the spinning ceiling fan ( _or maybe the fan is stationary and the room is rotating around it_. Dude, you are so high right now), I might not be concerned. But she’s serious as a heart attack.

“Everyone who ever died is dying in their own private now. It never ends. No one’s suffering never ends. Just because we’re in a separate Now doesn’t mean their Nows aren’t real. It...” Louise is running out of steam, which is for the best. “Tell me you understand. Please.”

Susmita takes Louise’s hand. “I do.” She clears her throat. “Time isn’t linear just because we experience it that way. Time is granular. Every moment is its own separate world. Its own separate universe that never changes. _And_ is never gone. It’s still back there, kind of off to the left, a vibrating filament, a quantum waveform long since collapsed through observation. But it doesn’t go away. And everyone who experienced that moment is trapped there forever, right? That kind of thing.”

God, Susmita is smart. 

“Yes!” cries Louise. “Yes! That’s it!”

Susmita’s smile at her friend’s joy at being understood turns cold. “Bullshit,” she says, calmly.

“What?” says Louise, deflating before my eyes.

“Time. Doesn’t. Work. Like. That. Neither does consciousness. Particularly consciousness. I mean _maybe_ time can be said to be granular -- the length of a ‘moment’ being linked to, say, the speed of causality. But even if you posit a physics where it's possible to perceive time in more than one direction, or to freeze-frame it somehow, that doesn’t change how the mind experiences time. You’re right that it’s always Now, not Then, but the past is still the past. It may not be gone, but it's not happening, either.

“You’re mistaking a philosophical, emotional concept for actual cosmology. It’s OK, people have always made that mistake. There’s a word for it: religion.”

“Hey - go easy on her, OK?” says Rudy. “She’s in a lot of pain.”

“Life _is_ pain, Highness,” quotes Susmita. “Anyone who says differently is selling something.” 

For a moment - again - I fear a violent outburst, this time directed at Susmita. But, although it takes considerably longer for her to get control of herself this time, the storm passes and Louise sits back down slowly, whispering “as you wish.”

“I assure you,” says Susmita, “no one is suffering who isn’t currently alive. And even some of _that_ suffering is voluntary - like yours, right now.”

Louise is vibrating with rage at the universe, at time, at God.

“It just... it’s so... obscene. An entire species, _tortured_ to death.” By tacit agreement, we all observe a long moment of silence.

“You know,” I say, startling the others out of their sad reveries, “I always thought the only thing worse than burning to death was burning _almost_ to death. The worst pain imaginable, the most painful, protracted recovery path possible, the disfigurement... _plus,_ you have to live with the memory of burning up.”

Three faces stare blankly at me as if I’d just made a completely random statement; as if I’d jumped into a discussion of the Marvel Comics Universe with 'lie detectors don’t really work, they just measure how nervous you are. A sociopath can lie his ass off and pass with flying colors.'

Exasperated, I explain, “That’s what Millie’s going through. She went through the horrible, bone-snapping stuff, but survived, so now she goes around in constant pain _and_ has to live with the memory of--”

Rudy grabs my arm - an unusually aggressive move for him - and growls “You’re. Not. Helping.”

Louise is barely present. She’s staring at the surface of the table from an altitude of about 225 miles, a one-girl ISS, but looks up long enough to say “Rude, stop” in what I recognize as The Voice(TM). She’s barely audible, but I assure you, everyone within a quarter-mile radius just stopped whatever they were doing. 

He lets go of my arm and apologizes. To her. Me, he keeps glaring at. It’s a little creepy, but I know how protective he is of Louise. He’d jump down a T-Rex’s throat and stab it to death from the inside if it so much as looked at her funny. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s how he wants to die.

This time, the silence is awkward. Louise is ruminating on the subject of hell, Rudy is still fuming at me, and I’m both sorry for making matters worse and offended by Rudy’s hostility.

Susmita’s fine. A bit subdued, perhaps, but mostly waiting for the rest of us to return to our senses. “Change of subject?” she suggests.

“Please,” I say.

“Well, I had a video chat last night with a guy in the Orlando metro, ex-NASA, who was able to hack his way into a few of their surveillance satellites that monitor North America, and he’s using them to, well, to do a few things.” Sus has our complete attention.

“He’s putting together a real-time map of our transportation infrastructure, starting with the major highways - which stretches are clear, which ones are blocked by natural disaster wreckage, or choked with the vehicles of people who died fleeing the big cities, that kind of thing. He’s also using the satellites to find population clusters, signs of active agriculture, stuff like that.”

“And he contacted you last night? Out of the blue?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How did he find you? How did he know how to contact you?”

She positively glows with pride. “I put an 864-square-foot sign on the top of the Wharf Arts Center last year with my IP address and some other info on it. For just such a situation. It was a long shot, but it was a piece of cake for Teddy to build - it’s just a wooden platform, seventy-two feet by twelve feet, and a whole lot of paint.”

Rudy is impressed. “That’s amazing. Why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”

“Well, like I said,

it was a long shot. A really, really long shot. I didn’t want people to have expectations. I’d forgotten about it completely myself when the messaging client on my laptop started beeping at me with the assigned ringtone.”

Louise, back on Earth’s surface, asks “So, what did he say? What’s he been seeing. Other than your sign on the roof.”

“Oh, there’s so much... I was going to make a big announcement and call a sort of press conference, but I got upstaged by Millie. Which is fine. I’m thinking I can do a special guest appearance on Post-Apocalypse Now tomorrow morning.”

“Seriously?” I ask, a bit indignant. “You’re sitting right here, and you’re going to make us wait until tomorrow morning?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I’ve got a PowerPoint presentation and everything, and I really don't want to give it twice.”

“Well,” says Louise, “I think you need to go down to the mayor’s office right now and tell her about all this.”

“That’s actually a good idea,” agrees Susmita.

“And you’ll need us with you,” Louise insists.

“Um, what for?”

“To carry your laptop, of course.”

QED, apparently, by Louise's expression.

“It doesn’t take three people to carry a laptop. Not since 1981. And I can carry it myself.”

Louise is having none of it. She transforms into an Italian guy from the Bronx. “Hey, buddy, this is a union town. It’s a _minimum_ of three workers per laptop. So unless you want to hear from the firm of Hoffa, Corleone and Norma Rae, the three of us are carrying your laptop. And when we get there, we’ll screw in a lightbulb for ya. (Put her down for one screwing, Joey). Yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah, offensive anti-union propaganda, final bon mot. The end.”

Susmita would have objected again, but she’s too busy laughing. “OK, OK, I give. I’ll go grab the laptop from the van, and we’ll walk over to Mayor Meyer’s place.

As we head for the door, Rudy stops me for a moment. “I’m really sorry,” he says, “I’ve never done anything like that before. I feel like a pile of shit.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not a _pile_ ,” I say, sweetly. Buuuurn.

“I deserved that,” he says, sheepishly.

I tussle his hair. 

“So we’re cool,” he asks.

“We’re cool,” I say.


	4. Recovering the Satellites

LOUISE

“Man, the one time you sleep in, all hell breaks loose,” 

The mayor is clearly amused by the chaos in her reception area. She exudes the kind of confidence and charisma that would have propelled her to national office in the old world, but at the same time, it’s obvious she doesn’t take herself too seriously. 

I like her already.

But I don’t envy her. We’re not the only ones here who need to speak to her  _ immediately _ , about something  _ far more important _ than anything anyone else here does. 

The folks seated next to us are very upset about the Burger Lottery. They’ve been in town for six months and haven’t won yet, and isn’t it time to step up the rate of chicken and turkey slaughtering, so more people get a chance at a Bob’s Burger. 

There’s a guy across from us who is extremely upset about his next-door neighbor’s new exterior paint job, with its LGBT Rainbow color scheme. He’s gay, himself, but the paint job doesn’t match the rest of the neighborhood. 

“When I was president of the Wilton Manor Homeowners Association, this would never have happened,” we hear him tell the receptionist. He goes on to suggest establishing a Seymour’s Bay HOA.

The receptionist - Marshmallow, almost unrecognizable in a conservative haircut and a gray pantsuit - says, in her mellifluous contrabass, “great idea, honey. Why don’t you go set up an office at 347 East Medford.” She gives him directions to the address - the location of Wagstaff Elementary - that will take him directly to the mass gravesite. “Go make yourself at home,” she tells him.

As the mayor steps into the fray, two arguing poultry farmers approach the reception desk. Before either one can speak, Marshmallow hands each an English translation of the Talmud with the relevant passages bookmarked. She’s clearly dealt with these two repeatedly. A staring contest ensues. Marshmallow wins easily and the two take their leave, subdued. 

“That’s what I thought,” she purrs, quietly triumphant.

Marshmallow hands the Mayor a sheet of paper with a list of her visitors and their issues, but she brushes it away and addresses Susmita.

“Ms. Venkataraghavin, come right in!” 

So, the mayor knows Sus and addresses her respectfully by her rather difficult-to-pronounce surname. Impressive.

As we follow her back to her office, she says “oh, you’re all together, huh?”

“Yeah,” admitted Susmita. “They wouldn’t let me do this alone. It’s not moral support; they just don’t want to wait to hear the news.”

The mayor is intrigued. As Sus sits down in front of Mayor Meyer’s desk, and I slip in to take the seat beside her, leaving Rude and Jodi to stand, leaning against the wall next to a bookshelf, she asks “and what news is that?”   
  
By way of reply, Sus pulls her laptop and a tiny projector out of their case, connects the projector to a USB port on the laptop and aims it at the wall across from the mayor’s desk. Sus’s MacBook desktop now takes up about two-thirds of the wall, and the mayor closes the blinds to make it more clearly visible.   
  
“I was going to show you a PowerPoint presentation,” says Susmita, bringing up a chat client, “but if I can raise Howard in Orlando, he can talk you through it better than me.”

Almost immediately, Susmita’s call is answered, and the disheveled, just-awakened, hairy visage of a man in his 60s appears on the screen. Howard looks more like a Hell’s Angel than the NASA engineer he once was. He’s shirtless, and his chest and arms are covered in tattoos. His salt-and-pepper hair is shoulder length, and he’s got what can only be described as an epic beard. 

He also has the eyes of a poet or a prophet, and radiates intelligence even in his current groggy condition. This dude is formidable. 

“Hey, Sus, what’s up?” he says, “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until tonight.”

“Sorry to wake you,” says Sus. “I’m meeting with the mayor to go over all of that info you sent me, but I thought it would be better if you did the explaining -- if you’ve got the time.”

“Oh, wow, that’s right,” says Howard, “you guys have a mayor. Cool. OK, give me a minute to hit the bathroom and I’ll be right back.”

“Maybe while we’re waiting,” the mayor suggests, “you can give me a quick precis of your presentation.”

“Sure. Howard is a former NASA engineer, worked primarily with weather and (shh, don’t tell anyone) spy satellites. He’s hacked into three satellites he worked with back in the day - he left himself a back door on each of them just in case. And he’s been gathering all sorts of info from them about the state of things in North America. The satellites he’s working with can read a business card from space. Amazing. He saw our lights at night, zoomed in on us the next day, and saw my message on the roof of the arts center. He spent the rest of the day doing a little benign spying on us and contacted me last night. Some of what he had to show me was--”

“OK, I’m back.”

Howard cleans up real well. With his hair brushed and gathered into a ponytail in back, and wearing a button-down shirt, he’s a new man. But he still has those eyes...

“Great,” says Susmita. “Introductions, then. Everyone, this is Dr. Howard Mosier. Dr. Howard Mosier, these are my nosy friends Jodi, Louise, and Rudy.” Sus pans her laptop around to face us and we wave at the Webcam. She rotates the laptop back to face the mayor. “And this is mayor Danielle Meyer.”

“Ms. Meyer, it’s a pleasure. Tell me, are you the Danielle Meyer who wrote the Longshore Trilogy? You sure look a lot like the portraits on the sleeves of my first editions.”

The mayor is pleased. “Yep, that’s me. Thanks for buying the hardcovers,” she chuckles.

“Not at all, they’re terrific books," says Howard. “Anyway, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Literally. Can you spare half an hour, maybe 45 minutes? Maybe a hour, actually”

“Anything for a fan.”

“Great. Hold on. Sus, I’m gonna share my screen with you...” There’s a short pause, and on the wall, Susmita’s desktop is replaced by Dr. Mosier’s, which is dominated by an image of the North American continent at night. A thin, white line delineates the coasts.

“This is a time exposure of North America five nights ago,” says Howard.

It’s dark. Very dark. I check first for Seymour’s Bay, which is gut-wrenchingly easy to find. It’s the only bright light in the Mid-Atlantic region. There are four equally bright tiny pools of light spread across the US, and three in Canada (near Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, respectively. Nothing near Ottawa, the only other Canadian city I can locate on a map). There are four in Mexico - A place I know nothing about, so I couldn’t tell you what cities or landmarks they might be near.

There are about half a dozen much dimmer lights, barely visible, across the entire expanse. Otherwise, the image is pitch black.

  
  
  


“Jesus God,” gasps Jodi, who instinctively crosses herself.

“Oh, wow,” says Rudy.

Oh, wow doesn’t even remotely cover it for me. Maybe I’m just running on leftover emotion from earlier this morning, but I start bawling.  _ Three years ago, there were 600 million people down there. Now, how many? A few thousand?  _

Rudy runs over to comfort me, but I hold up a hand. I have to work through this myself.

It takes a minute, but I find my way out. 

_ It’s nothing I didn’t already know. It’s just shocking to see it.  _

I pull myself together. 

“You OK, kid?” asks Howard.

“Yeah.” *sniff* “Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

He continues. “I know this is pretty scary, but for what it’s worth, here’s the same view a year ago.”

Now my heart craters in my gut. Only five bright points of light across the entire continent. Us, central Florida (presumably Howard’s location) and one on the Oregon coast that I can’t associate with any metro area. There’s the one near Vancouver; Toronto and Ontario are there but much dimmer, barely visible. No sign of the four Mexican locations from the more recent photo.

“So you can see,” says Howard, “there’s been a lot of development in the past year. And if you want to feel a lot more hopeful...”  _ no, I’d rather hang out down here in the pit of despair _ , “...here’s one from three nights ago, a much longer exposure at the highest sensitivity.”

Now the wall lights up. And while no one would mistake it for a night view of the continent before the plague, it’s a damn sight livelier than either of the other photos. There are hundreds of individual, single-pixel points of light, and about 30 larger clusters maybe 25 percent as bright as ours. There are still huge pitch-black areas, though, and something else is bothering me...

Howard goes on. “Now, understand, a lot of those one-pixel dots are campfires and the like - that’s how sensitive these cameras are - and they’re likely associated with either individuals or very small groups. The mid-sized dots... well, first, let me show you something.   
  
Now the room lights up as the image switches to a daytime shot overlaid with pale, mostly transparent circles of various sizes where the night photos had shown population clusters.

But it’s not a photo.

“This,” says Howard, clearly pleased with himself, “is now. This is a live feed from the satellite that produced the previous images. You like Google Earth? This is Google Earth Live in Concert.”

Howard’s cursor arrow clicks on Seymour’s Bay’s circle, and while it doesn't do that cool zooming-in thing Google Earth does (an entertaining animation with no relation to reality), we’re treated to a series of ever-closer views of our little seaside town. 

It takes a while. The technology involved is almost incomprehensibly advanced, but it’s not magic, and it’s not CSI: Miami. It takes about 15 to 30 seconds for the camera to adjust and refocus each time, and even then, the magnification increases in small increments. 

Mayor Meyer is impressed. “God  _ damn _ , I’ve always wanted to do this. How close in can you get?”

“If you step outside and hold up your hand, I’ll be able to tell if you’re married. Stand on top of the Chrysler building and hold the ring up at just the right angle, and I can read the inscription. This thing is just sick.”

“Great,” says Susmita. “Three years after the death of the surveillance state, and we still have absolutely no privacy.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” agrees Howard. (We can now make out the largest interstate highways, criss-crossing the region.) “One of the other satellites I control has this insane infrared camera. The It’is so sensitive, if you’re having sex on the top floor on a cold night, I can tell what position you’re doing.”

Well, that stops the conversation on a dime.

“No, I don’t... I found that out by accident. Jeez.” It’s actually refreshing - and charming - to see Dr. Mosier’s professorial/uber-geek facade crack. For a moment, he’s genuinely embarrassed, the socially awkward nerd he probably was as a young man, before he became a master of space machines. 

On the satellite feed, we can now make out - even recognize! - individual people walking around Seymour’s Bay. There are about half a dozen people leaning on the rail at Wonder Wharf, staring out at the sea. Two of them are clearly Courtney and Jocelyn. Court has let her hair grow free for about two years, and it’s most of the way down her back. Hard to miss. And Jocelyn, who’s in one of her phases, is sporting a buzz-cut with blue streaks. Even harder to miss. 

“Hey, I’m gonna go outside and wave to the satellite!” Rudy barrels out of the room. We explain to Howard where this building is relative to the view on screen, and in a moment, we can make out my absurd little medium-sized boyfriend waving his arms at the sky, to the bemusement of several people in the vicinity. Then he stops waving, and does that pointing two fingers at your eyes then pointing them back at someone, “I’m watching you” gesture - OK, that’s pretty fucking funny - and now I realize that I can make out the color of his eyes.

Mosier is right. That satellite is  _ sick _ . 

“Hey, didja see me? Didja see me?” Rudy bounds back into the office, positively giddy. 

“Yes,” we all say, most of us in a tone that betrays our impatience with the whole digression, a nuance not lost on Rudy.

“Geez, sorry,” he says, annoyed. “Hasn’t anyone else here ever wanted to do that? When I was a kid, I used to give the sky the finger every once in a while, in case someone was watching from orbit. Oh, crap, I should have flipped you off while I was out there. Damn, what a missed opportunity.”

O....K. This is pretty weird behavior for Rude, who generally keeps his weirdness to himself, or expresses his odd thoughts in private. I don’t know if my crazed emotions this morning have put him off balance, or if he’s doing this to entertain me and bring me out of my funk. Either way, he’s getting extra cuddles later.

“This is all great, Doctor,” says the mayor, “but I already know what’s happening in my town. Can you show me something I don’t know.” Her words are a bit insulting, but her tone is genial.

“Sure thing, Your Mayorness,” replies Howard, seeing her “genial” and raising her “insouciant.” We hear the sound of typing. “I’m entering in the coordinates of one of the smaller outposts I’ve observed. You might recognise it on sight, if--

Now it hits me. “California! The west coast is completely dark. What’s the hell?!”

Morier’s expression darkens. “Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know.” Aw, crap; I’m not sure I want to. “You probably experienced a mild earthquake about 18 months ago, right? Maybe a 4.0?”

I wouldn’t know the magnitude, but I nod. It was strong enough to break a bunch of windows, and... _ Oh, God. No. No no no... _

“I can tell you know what’s coming,” says Howard. “They had the big one, probably north of ten point oh. Maybe  _ way _ north. Most of the state was leveled. I haven’t had the heart to do a detailed survey, but there’s not an unbroken mile of highway from Baja to Bandon. I’d say about 90 percent of the man-made structures in Cali are completely destroyed. Everything within 75 miles of the epicenter was decimated. Pulverized. There are new rivers and gulfs running from the sea to as far inland as what used to be Sacramento. There were landslides of mind mangling proportions. A couple of mountains in the San Gabriels are  _ gone _ . Collapsed.

“If anyone’s left alive in the state, they’re living in the stone age. I... kind of wish you hadn’t asked, but you have the right to know. The planet betrayed us. Sometimes I think Mother Gaia just wants to be rid of us completely. Not that I blame her.”

For the second time today, we observe a moment of silence. 

“So,” says the mayor, after a respectful interval, “Whose privacy are we about to invade now?”

“Well, in about... 30 seconds, we’ll be getting a top-down view of Princeton University. I’ve been in contact with the folks there for about four months now - in fact,  _ they _ found  _ me _ , a month before I brought the satellites online.”

“Ah, I was going to ask why we only heard from you just now,” says the mayor. “Why’d it take you so long to hack into them, if you left backdoors?”

“Getting in took two minutes,” says Howard, a bit put out. “It was fetting even rudimentary networking infrastructure back into place that was a bitch. And I couldn’t address that until after I’d handled the basic survival stuff. You don’t know how lucky you are in Jersey - you had electrical power and a big chunk of the grid still running when the dust cleared. It’s a mess down here. We get two or more cat-four hurricanes a year, plus three or four of their little brothers. Global warming. Even this far inland, we get clobbered. I’ve got 120 people to take care of, and... OK, here we are.”

We’re looking down on the campus of Princeton University which, for all of its vaunted reputation for intellectual and scientific achievements, seems to devote an inordinate amount of real estate to playing fields for various sports. In fact, that’s almost all we can see at the moment. 

But who cares - there are a dozen people visible, wandering around a large, undefined green expanse between the soccer fields and some of the few academic buildings visible. Some are walking at a leisurely pace, some are standing and conversing. About half are sitting around a blanket having a picnic. As we watch, one of the picnickers answers their phone, then looks up and waves. Every one of us in the office waves back, idiotically, even the celebrated science fiction author behind the mayor’s desk. She’s also misty-eyed like the rest of us. 

I’m not sure exactly why we’re so moved, honestly. We’ve already been in contact with two other colonies no further away than Princeton for well over a year, with a vigorous exchange of goods, services and people. But somehow, this is different. Maybe it’s just the way we’re being introduced, maybe it’s the stark contrast with the vast emptiness Howard showed us just a few minutes ago.

Maybe it’s that Princeton isn’t just a place, it’s an institution, and we’re kinda all out of those at the moment.

“That’s Miriam Weiss waving at you,” says Howard. “She was a PhD candidate in computer science when everything fell apart. She and her girlfriend Anais are the only actual former students living on campus. Wait, let me add her to the chat...”

There are a few clicks, and now a window labeled “Miriam W” pops up in front of our bird’s eye view of the Princeton campus. “Hi, guys,” says Miriam, her round face largely obscured by sunglasses and a riot of curly hair. “Howard says you’ve really got it going on over there. Solar power, clean water, agriculture, modern medicine, grammy-nominated folk-rock band in residence. The whole deal.”

“We’re holding it together,” says the mayor. 

“I am so fucking torn,” says Miriam. “There’s 12 of us here, and we’re getting by mostly on canned foods, holed up in the CS building, which is the only one on campus still fully powered. Seaside living in a real town sounds like a dream.”

“But...” prompts the mayor.

“But... I’d be walking away from all of this computer technology - a substantial portion of which represents my life’s work. There’s shit here I _invented,_ and am in the process of inventing, that I only have the means to fabricate here, on equipment I can’t possibly move.”

“Um...but...” Susmita takes a deep breath. She’s clearly preparing to proceed delicately. “Look, I’m not saying you should abandon your work, and forgive me, since I don’t know the nature of it, but under the current circumstances, does something super-advanced have any practical application? I mean, we’re treading water just maintaining what’s still functional of the infrastructure we had three years ago...”

Miriam’s interruption is emphatic enough to startle Susmita, who physically recoils from her projected image; the rest of us somehow had enough sense to anticipate the backlash.

“You’re right, you don’t know the nature of my work! Do you think I don’t know the state of the grid right now? I know better than anyone. I’m developing technology to  _ replace  _ the fucking grid, for Chrissakes!”

“Hey, Miri, settle down,” growls Howard. 

In reply, Miriam growls back and hangs up.

Well, that escalated quickly.

“Sorry about that,” says Howard. “She’s a genius, but she’s got no social skills. Typical geek.”

“I know the type,” says Sus. “I  _ was _ the type.” Then, underneath her breath:  _ “But I fucking outgrew it.” _

“Look guys,” says Howard, “I’ve got to go talk her down. Can we take this up later?”

“Of course,” says the mayor. “It was a pleasure meeting you. Go wrangle your friend. I look forward to hearing what she’s working on.”

“Well, it’s big. She’s being oversensitive, but she has reason to be. Talk to you later.”

Howard’s desktop disappears, replaced by Susmita’s.

We’re all speechless for a moment. Then, I say what has to be said. 

“Seriously. He’s just gonna leave it there, not even give us a hint what she’s working on? Are all you geek types sadists, you get off on torturing the Normies?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” says Susmita, “he’s torturing me, too.” She shakes her head. “Replacing the grid. What the hell is she doing up there?”


	5. I, Drone-bot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot to say here, but I meant to mention before that a couple character names have special meaning for me. 
> 
> Jodi's last name, Hatch, is a nod to her voice actress in the series, the brilliantly funny Rachel Dratch.
> 
> And the Lara twins are named for a dear, recently departed friend born in Honduras who I worked with both as a journalist and in the theater. He was a brilliant guy, with a real genius for theatrical technical trickery. and he was just a month past his 60th birthday when his heart betrayed him and stopped beating last July. 
> 
> Incidentally, if I'm getting any of the ultra-high-tech stuff wildly wrong in this section, please let me know.

SUSMITA   
I can’t sleep. God knows I should be able to after the last half hour with Dean. The guy’s a master-craftsman: do it with him five or six times, enough to learn your sensitivities and preferences, and he can actually control what  _ kind  _ of orgasm he gives you (assuming a certain baseline on the receiving end). And I didn't even know there was more than one kind.

After tossing and turning for an hour despite  _ Mac’s _ best efforts (which are pretty damn good), I borrowed Dean from Jodi, asked him to play Sandman, and he more than obliged.

(God, this really is a great arrangement we’ve got here. I think I’m going to tell Jodi yes.)

Now Dean is out cold next to me (I can give as good as I get), and Jodi, who crawled into bed next to him after we were done, is draped on top of him, and Tina and Grant are snoring away in the next room, and there’s nothing I can do except go downstairs and start pacing around the living room.

What the hell is that Miriam bitch (I’m still fuming from being snarled at by her) doing in the Computer Science building at Princeton? How exactly is she planning to single-handedly replace -- not rebuild, mind you.  _ Replace _ \- the data grid?

It’s not going to be some grand works project. There aren’t enough people, much less enough tech-savvy ones, to pull that off. So the new grid is, apparently, going to build itself. How? She said she needed facilities on campus to “fabricate” her inventions. What the hell is she “fabricating”?

Howard said to wait until tomorrow to follow up on the matter - that it would take Miriam that long to get over her outburst - which sounds crazy, but then again, I’m still actively pissed myself.

But why can’t  _ he _ tell me what Miriam’s up to? 

I need some air. The verandah calls.

It’s been an uncomfortably warm June, but there’s a lovely breeze off the ocean. I settle into my favorite cushioned wicker chair and let it cool my body and soothe my mind. In the distance, I can hear the sound of a band up late rehearsing. It can’t be Joe, Tess, and crew - there’s a drummer, and Mac is currently out cold upstairs. Also, the guy is pretty decent, but not as good as Mac. 

There are the usual nighttime sounds - “crickets clicking in the ferns,” as Joni Mitchell wrote; a few weird birds who don’t realize it’s the middle of the night; frogs - long absent, they’ve made a comeback just in the last six months; wind whispering through the trees; and now, a new sound. A familiar type of buzzing, coming from midair. Who the hell flies a drone at 3 am?

The sound is coming nearer. Now I catch sight of the source, and it’s not at all what I expect.

It’s a drone, alright, but its propellers are not being used primarily for lift. Above its more or less typical plastic body is a large, sleek, football-shaped balloon. The thing is a dirigible.

Incredibly, it’s got an led display on the side with a cycling message: First “Princeton Drone Fleet, Unit 7, the Auguste Piccard,” then “Range 100 Miles, Top airspeed 10 knots,” then “Wireless, Bluetooth, 5G. 4K Video, 60fps. Ultra-sensitive mic, 5W Speakers,” then, finally, “Hello Susmita.”

I refuse to betray any emotion to Miriam, who I’m sure is watching and listening to the feed from the drone back at Princeton. When the absurd - if impressive - device is about 20 feet away, I say “Hey, Miriam, what’s up?” as casually as possible.

“Not much,” she replies. “Just running the Piccard through its paces, thought I’d say hi.”

“Nice toy,” I say. “Where’d you get that, Sharper Image?”

“Tiger Direct," Mirian deadpans.

"You know, I always wondered why dirigible drones weren't a thing. Really allows you to extend the range, potentially. But tell me, how do you compensate for the wind?" I'm sincerely curious, and she picks up on that, dropping her attitude.

"By running an insane amount of data through a pile of highly complex algorithms and tying it all together with very sophisticated AI. 

"This thing has an onboard barometer, thermometer and like half a dozen other -ometers, and gets detailed weather data from the GPS satellite it uses to navigate plus a bunch of weather balloons I launched a few months ago.

"Mash all that info together and it can reliably predict any significant breeze up to 20 seconds ahead of time and compensate for it."

"Nice. But doesn't all of that compensating eat up battery life almost as fast as using the propellers for lift?"

"In anything but calm conditions, yes. But I'm using batteries with much higher capacity than anything you'd find in a consumer unit. And there's solar cells on the top to recharge them during daylight hours.

"But yeah, this thing isn't useful in really windy conditions, though it can decide for itself if it’s preferable to take cover and wait out a storm or the like. Still, I'm developing long-range ground units to deal with harsher conditions."

"Fair enough," I say. "But what are you actually using these for?"

"Well, ultimately, this. Communications. There are hundreds of little colonies and encampments across the continent - and almost certainly the rest of the world. But with the transportation infrastructure in disarray, and very few people having access to what's left of the telecom system, it'll be a lot safer and more efficient to send out a bunch of robot emissaries."

Makes sense. But it's another project of hers that I'm most interested in.

The drone is now hovering next to me, and I'm addressing it as if it's Miriam herself. But I'm reminded that I'm looking at her robotic proxy when she says "could you tie me to the other chair? I'm using up a lot of energy compensating for the lift of the balloon."

There's a short line dangling from the bottom of the drone that upon closer examination turns out to be a thin USB cord that can be unwrapped to extend to about three feet. I wrap it around the frame of the chair to my right - gently, so as not to damage the cord.

"Thanks," says Miriam. "Hey, look, I'm sorry for blowing up at you earlier. I just... I've been working on this thing 20 hours a day since before the plague, and it was going to put a Nobel Prize on my shelf by 2040. Like I said, it's my life's work. You have no idea."

Well, yeah. "So give me an idea. Just what  _ is _ your life's work?"

She doesn't waste words. "I'm developing autonomous, self-replicating, network-node-constructing robots. Flying ones for reconnaissance, and surveying and virtualization of terrain; large all-terrain rovers for land preparation and 3D printing of components - from available raw materials where possible; and multi-limbed, highly articulated ones for constructing the nodes.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m deeply impressed and a bit terrified - on a number of levels. There is silence for about 15 seconds before I say, flatly, “cool.”

“Hey, says Miriam, “could you take this thing inside and plug it in. The batteries are actually pretty drained. It can make it back tomorrow on solar if necessary, charging along the way, but it’ll move a lot quicker if it starts out fully charged.”

“Sure,” I say. I bring the drone inside, plug it into the wall, and stick it in the coat closet. “Nite-nite,” I say, and toggle the on-off switch.

I wander upstairs, crawl into bed next to Mac and Tina, and, well, excuse me while I go out like a light.

  
  


LOUISE

I wander upstairs around 11 am. Everyone in the household stayed in their rooms all night to give Millie and Dan some privacy. I seriously don’t know how they manage to copulate given Millie’s condition; but they say Stephen Hawking had a sex life well into his completely immoble period - that, in fact, he actually cheated on his wife at least once. People manage. Human spirit, 1; Crippling diseases, 0.

When I get to the living room, Dan is sleeping on one of the couches, and Millie is just waking up, her limbs at odd angles on her elaborate bed, smiling blissfully through her constant pain. Maybe it’s possible to get used to it. Maybe she and Dan know exactly how much Percocet she needs to get through the day. 

“Hey, Lou,” she whispers, “c’mere.”

I tiptoe past Dan and over to Millie. I lean in close and whisper “how ya doin’?”

Millie sighs contentedly. “Great. Perfect. Thank you so much, Lou. Dan and I, we...” she lowers her whisper a notch. “...we finally did it last night. Thanks to you.”

“Wait - last night was you guys’s first time?”

“MmmHmm.  _ My _ first time, ever. God, I wish I still had my good body. We had to be so...delicate, and we wanted to fuck each other’s brains out. Still, soooo nice.” 

But you’ve been traveling together for like 18 months, right? Why now, all of a sudden?”

“Well, we’ve been building up to it for a while,” she says. “Making out and stuff. But I think Dan was really reluctant to risk hurting me, so we never went any further. Then... I don’t know. You making sure we had space and privacy kinda felt like a seal of approval, or permission, or a direct order or something.”

I chuckle. “Glad to be of service. Say, can I... no, I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”

Millie echoes my laughter. “You want to know how we managed, huh?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, eyes darting, scanning the room for enemy agents and nosy friends. 

Mille smirks, a cat with the canary in its belly. “Well, let’s just say you’d be amazed how flexible this bed is.”

  
  


TINA

Susmita told me all about her meeting with the mayor yesterday, including her brief, hostile encounter with a computer genius from Princeton with a major, mysterious project in the works. But I wasn’t prepared to find her sitting in the living room this morning, talking to a miniature Goodyear blimp.

She notices me wandering in and says, “Tina, come here. Meet Miriam.”

I’ve learned that if you want to keep your balance in the brave new world, you have to fake it ‘til you make it, and keep your cool in the face of utter weirdness.

“Hi there. I take it you guys have made up. And that Miriam is some kind of floating robot. Cool.”

“Nope,” says Miriam through the machine’s speakers. “I’m in Princeton. The robot is just my avatar. It’s nice to meet you, Tina. Sus has been telling me all about your little poly commune. Sounds wonderful. So, are you guys gonna marry Jodi or what?”

“I’m voting yes,” interjects Susmita. “Though I still don’t believe in the institution of marriage. What do you think, T?”

“Oh, um, I’m not sure. I mean, I’m kind of planning on marrying Mac, so I don’t know how we’re gonna handle that...”

Miriam laughs. “Mac Truck. I love it,” she says, and launches into the Berserker song from Clerks. “ _ My love for you is like a truck Berserker! Would you like some making fuck Berserker!” _

“It’s ‘ Trúc,’ not “Truck,” I insist.  _ Oh, lighten up, Belcher _ . “But, yeah, it’s pretty funny. I don't know if his mom was a comic genius or a child abuser, but it’s sure a conversation starter.”

“I hear he’s a helluva drummer,” says Miriam.

“He’s amazing. When I listen to him play with the group, I can’t believe I wasted my youth listening to fucking boy bands. There was all this real music out there I wasn’t even aware of.”

“I can believe fucking Melody Syndicate just wandered into your town,” says Miriam - Melody Syndicate was the name of Joe and Tess’s folk-rock group. “I have all of their albums. All my life, it’s been them, Indigo Girls and Jonatha Brooke on my playlist. I gotta drop by and meet them.”

“Please do,” says Susmita, “and bring Anais. Hell, bring the whole crew. We’ll talk tech, have a Melody Syndicate house concert, and ride the rides at Wonder Wharf.”

“And my dad will treat you to some genuine Bob’s burgers,” I add. “One of those and a side of fries and you’ll never want to leave.”

“Sounds like a plan. OK, Sus, unplug me,” I notice that the drone is tethered to the floor by a USB cable attached to a fast-charger. “I’m fully charged. Open a window, and this thing should be able to find its way home in about 4 hours.”

Sus unplugs the cable, wraps it around a couple of protrusions on the bottom of the drone, and releases it. As it floats toward an already open window, Miriam calls “bye, guys” and takes her robotic leave of our house. Susmita and I go to the window and watch it levitate to an altitude of about 100 feet, turn about 100 degrees, and zip off surprisingly quickly in the general direction of Princeton, New Jersey.

I turn to Sus and say “that was weird. That was weird, right?”

“That was just practice weird,” she replies, still watching the now empty sky. “The real weird is coming soon. You’ll know it by the friendly invading robot army.”

“And you’re sure she doesn’t work for SkyNet” I say, only half-joking.

“Absolutely. Probably. Maybe. Shut up,” she says.


	6. Musical Interlude - World War B, Main Theme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since I've been spending so much time on this story, I figured I'd get my other creative talent involved and compose a "soundtrack" for it. I often compose soundtracks for theoretical film adaptations of novels I like, so why not do that exercise for my own work?
> 
> (My main training/profession is music performance and composition, so I'm not just flailing away here. That said, it's not my greatest work, but for something I threw together in an afternoon with synths, it's pretty cool.
> 
> When I get a chance to record it, I have a love theme for Louise and Rudy that's a more traditional piano composition, and a much better, more sophisticated piece of music.
> 
> Which is not to down-rap this one. It's kinda cool.

[World War B - Main Theme by Darren Zieger](https://soundcloud.com/darrenzieger/world-war-b-main-theme-work-in-progress)


	7. A (much better) Musical Interlude - Louise and Rudy, Love Theme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here's the Louise/Rudy love theme from my theoretical soundtrack. It's a way better piece of music from my first pass at a main theme, posted yesterday.
> 
> This one plays more to my strengths and skills as a composer, which is to say it actually draws on them.
> 
> Anyway, it's kinda pretty. Enjoy.
> 
> I promise the next chapter will be actual words, not music.

[World War B - Love Theme](https://soundcloud.com/darrenzieger/world-war-b-love-theme)


	8. Bot Day Afternoon

GENE

So, well, how do I say this?

Mom’s living with Calvin Fischoeder.

Let me back up a bit. Mom got sober. It took a week of absolute hell, but she detoxifies chemically. Then there were about three months of constant vigilance on the part of everyone close to her - which aged all of us about 5 years - before everyone,  _ including Mom _ , was convinced that she was stable and not at risk of relapse. She’s been clean for a year now, and as happy as one can be under the circumstances. 

The circumstances being the post-apocalypse and the absence of her husband.

They’ve reconciled. They’re friends again, which does my heart good. In fact, they may actually be better friends than they were before. Now that Mom’s more annoying quirks (including her spontaneous songs, which have returned) are no longer something he has to live with 24-7, no longer his responsibility, Dad’s free to just find them massively entertaining. And now that she no longer has to negotiate the choppy waters of Dad’s obsessions, mom can laugh them off - or help him with them without the pressure of doing so out of a sense of obligation.

Still, it’s weird. They’re not BobandLinda anymore. Not really. They visit each other frequently, and have good times, but it’s different. Their kids are grown. So we seldom spend time together, the five of us, as a family. And when we do, it’s strained. There’s a sense that we... know too much, I guess? We’ve seen them at their worst, and they’re trying to start over. They love us, but I think they feel like we’re part of their baggage; or rather, I think, we remind them of that baggage. And whatever lingering doubts or regrets they have about their uncoupling, being around us surely throws them into sharp relief.

Regardless, there were about six months between Dad leaving Mom and their reconcilliation. And during that time - at least after she got sober - somehow, Mom hooked up with the man she had angrily referred to as “Fuck-odor” a few months earlier.

I get the sense it was almost as weird for Calvin as it was for Mom. 

He was clearly relieved that Tina had found an age-appropriate partner, but of course, it left a social and romantic void in his life that I don’t think he expected to be filled ever again. But he needn’t have worried. Already a changed man morally and ethically when he befriended Tina, he was further changed by months of companionship and lovemaking. No longer a sad old man seeking penance for a life of genteel sociopathy, he’s now a genuine silver fox. 

I noticed mom eyeing him once or twice - even flirting a bit, to her, his, and my astonishment. But it wasn’t until about a month ago that they both got past the compound weirdness of their being involved at all and the fact that Calvin had dated Tina, and Mom drove off to the Fischoeder manse and disappeared for about five days.

Good for them. To hear Tina tell it, Mom must be having a  _ really _ good time with Calvin, and I really don’t want to think about that anymore. Why, Tina, why did you have to tell me about the man’s “skills”? I didn’t want to know about that when he was with  _ you _ ; I sure don’t want to know  _ now _ !

Dad’s seeing someone, too, someone terrific, but I’m less surprised. Between his time as mayor and his current position of Burger Bob - Bob of the Burgers, Keeper of the Sacred Grill - he’s a local celebrity. We didn’t know until just recently - when he moved back into the apartment Mom vacated in favor of Calvin Fiscoeder’s fancier digs - that Andrea, a frequent diner at the restaurant, was actually Dad’s girlfriend. 

She’s a native Seymour’s Bayer (Bayite? Bayean? Bayvenoid?), but I’d never met her before. She’s in her mid-30s, to look at her, and gorgeous - way out of Dad’s league, frankly. I can’t parse her ethnicity - mixed signals. She’s a person of at least five competing colors that mix down to a sort of caramel skin and a set of features you wouldn’t expect to go together well, but add up to really, really hot. I should probably stop thinking about that.

She’s also smart as hell, and despite knowing that dad is... well, not, she clearly adores him for the qualities he does possess - even some of the ones you wouldn’t think a smart, gorgeous, exotic woman would value, like his “sloppy-bear” physique. To be fair, he’s slimmed down like most of the rest of us since the death of the Modern American Diet. But unlike Teddy, who’s in better shape now than he was in his 20s, Dad has retained his overall pear shape. 

So, to summarize: Dad’s dating a hot younger chick (who’s also a brilliantly intelligent grownup who loves him). Mom is living with Calvin “I can’t believe I’m writing this sentence” Fischoeder, Tina is on the cusp of entering into a group marriage, Louise and Rudy are planning to tie the knot, and I, well...

Nothing quite so momentous is happening in Chez Gene, but I’m not complaining. Granted, it’s getting a little crowded, but in a nice way. Millie and Dan are living in the second bedroom downstairs (I’d tell you about getting that bed down the stairs, but I’ve repressed the memory); Louise and Rudy are in the other basement bedroom; Scott, Mel(“-ody Singh” is the rest of her name, BTW), Courtney, Jocelyn, Jessica, and Courtney and Jocelyn’s shared “side-guy,” Ronny, and I crash in whatever combinations suit us in whatever of the three bedrooms is most conducive for it. Sometimes, our sleeping arrangements spill over into the first-floor living area.

As Tina says about her household, the sleeping arrangements and the sexual arrangements are two different matters, or at least can be. I mean, think about it: three men - one gay, one bi-, one straight; four women, one gay, two bi-, one straight; all in love with one another to at least some degree, from mildly to passionately. (And yes, gender and sexuality are not as clearly delineated as that; just trying to be succinct.)

The point is, it’s complicated. And crowded. But I love it.

All that relationship stuff aside, the big news around here is the reports from Princeton. And I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. Can’t wait to meet them. It’s going to be so cool. I don’t know when they’re going to roll out in earnest, but today, techno-geniuses Miriam and Anais will be visiting and giving a demonstration.

They expect to be here around 3 pm. They could get here sooner by car, but they’re using their first completed all-terrain mobile fabrication vehicle - the kind that’s going to build and bring the node-construction robots to the construction sites - and they want to see if they can make it entirely on solar power, which gives them a top speed of about 15 miles per hour.

I know it’s weird, but despite the fact that I’ve lived through the post-apocalypse for three years now, this is the first time my life has felt like science fiction to me. The robot-building robots are coming to Seymour’s Bay. Not drones, not fucking Roombas. Actual, autonomous, rolling, walking, flying, AI-driven robot workers.

Every sci-fi writer and fan who ever lived would envy us. Except for maybe the folks who wrote The Matrix, and the Terminator flicks. Mayor Meyer announced the news from Princeton a month ago, and if I hear another fucking SkyNet joke, I’m gonna strangle someone. Or send the Terminator to hunt them down.

But it’s kind of sweet the way people stop randomly in the street and wave at the sky in case Howard is watching. (He’s not - he’s monitoring and trying to contact other population centers.)

Oh, crap, it’s half-past Scott Time (TM). What was I thinking? Now go. Shoo.

  
  


SUSMITA

OK, I’ll admit it. I feel threatened. I’ve gotten used, just barely, to not being the alpha nerd around here. But Grant and Dean love me, and they make me feel like a movie star, so I refrain from killing them and making a PC mod out of their skulls.

But now Miriam and Anais are coming, and in just a few hours, we’ll all be seriously outclassed. I mean, Grant and Dean create, but Miriam and Anais  _ invent _ . They would have changed the world even if everything hadn’t gone to shit. Under the current circumstances, they’re going to save civilization the way Islam did during the European dark ages, by seeing to it that the knowledge and achievements of previous generations are not lost (something for which they were rarely given credit in modern times, at least in the West). 

So in a few hours, the girls from Princeton will be here, and the only people who’ll be able to talk to them on their own level are the twins, and I’ll be on the sidelines, listening without comprehension, like everyone else. 

And I hate it. Now I know why normies always hated and resented people like me. I’m half-considering not even going to their demonstration, for the fear I’ll blurt out “oh yeah, you think you’re so smart...” 

But they are. They  _ are _ so smart. I can’t compete. I mean, I know I’m not in competition with them, but it feels like it. I have to remind myself that the great universities of the world were filled with people who couldn’t compete with them. Minds like mine are like two deviations to the right on the IQ bell curve. Very rare. The twins are another deviation out - almost unheard of.

But Miriam and Anais have achieved something that puts them in a peer group that includes maybe a hundred people in a century. Well, in a population that rose to almost 8 billion before the plague, maybe two or three hundred. Future Nobel Laureates.

I’m a mere mortal. I shouldn’t resent them any more than I do Einstein or Hawking. But dammit, they’re  _ my fucking age _ . They’re of my cohort, my peer group. Except I’m not their peer.  I used to be the smartest kid in town. Now, in a much smaller pond, I’ve managed to become a small fish.

Worse, I’ve talked to Miriam dozens of times, and she’s never been condescending. She’s _treated_ me as a peer, which is so fucking generous of her, I want to scratch her eyes out. How dare she not be arrogant? How dare she not talk down to me? 

How dare she make me like her?   
  
Goddammit, I’ve got to suck it up. Go to the demonstration, talk to her like an equal, participate in the conversation. I  _ am _ her peer. Who knows what I would have achieved if I’d completed my education.

I can do this.

I can do this.


	9. Musical Interlude 3 - Tina's Theme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More theoretical soundtrack music - A theme for Tina.
> 
> Side note for those interested in such things - all the themes in this "soundtrack" incorporate a little three-note motif where there's a note, followed by a note one step down, them back to the original note. I think I'm going to run with that, though, if I'm clever, I can place it somewhere other than in the melody in some pieces. 
> 
> I learned this trick from Stephen Sondheim, who frequently writes what he calls "modular" scores - where the melody in one song is the bassline in another, etc. 
> 
> I'm not remotely as sophisticated a composer, but I think I'll give it a shot.
> 
> Anyway, here's the SoundCloud link to Tina's Theme:

[Tina's Theme](https://soundcloud.com/darrenzieger/tinas-theme)


	10. Miriam's Universal Ro-Bugs

TINA

I don’t like bugs.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate their role in the ecosystem, and it’s not their fault they’re gross. But they  _ are _ gross. Well, a few of them are cute, like pill bugs. And ladybugs, which are beetles - most bugs are beetles. I hear there are like a million species. But ladybugs are pretty much the only cute ones.

My point is, bugs...bug me. I mean, that’s where the saying comes from, right? Particularly flying ones. Those scare the shit out of me. Which is why the two-foot-long dragonfly thing sends me diving for cover behind a mailbox, wondering if the plague has caused certain bugs to mutate into giant versions of themselves. Not a pleasant prospect. 

To my horror, it turns to follow me, and it’s only when it’s hovering in front of my cowering form that I realize it isn’t a dragonfly at all, but a machine in the shape of one. The bulbous “head” is in fact a plastic sphere through which a small camera is visible. The body is also plastic and, unlike a real dragonfly, is made up of just one long segment. I don’t know what the four busily flapping wings are made of; my best guess is some other kind of very light, very strong plastic. I’m not very well versed in materials science.

The articulated camera scans me, and Miriam’s familiar voice addresses me through a tinny speaker. “Hello, Tina. Sorry to scare you. Cool robot, eh?”

“Very. But did you have to make it look like an insect? You scared the bejeezus out of me.”

“Yes. Yes, I did have to make it look like an insect. Have you ever watched a real dragonfly zip around?” To demonstrate, the robot darts back and forth, and up and down, like it’s responding to a kid entering a cheat code with a Nintendo controller.  _ Up, up, down, left, right, up, left, right, right, up, down. _ It finishes up where it had started, directly in front of me. (I’m still crouched, to my embarrassment, behind the mailbox.)

“Cool,” I mumble. “Cool, cool, cool.” I’m not being effusive. More like reassuring myself. “So where are you, actually?”

“About half an hour away, which in this thing means just up the road in Bog Harbor. Which is in surprisingly good condition, BTW.” She actually pronounces the letters. Bee, Tee, Double-you.

“Yeah,” I say, standing up and brushing myself off. The robot rises to match my height. “Once we had  _ this  _ place in decent shape, some volunteers went around to the surrounding towns and did some cleanup. There’s still a lot of corpses in the homes, but we cleared out the retail section. Which sounds cold, but we didn’t have the manpower to deal with every corpse in town.” 

I lean casually against the mailbox to mask the creeping horror I feel thinking of the houses and apartments full of dead bodies in the surrounding area - and indeed the rest of the world. I reassure myself that most wound up in mass graves; then I realize that’s not an even remotely reassuring thought.

“No, I get it. Anyway, it’s a very inviting facade. I’m tempted to stop at the Micro Center on the way, but I figure I’ll hit it on the way back.”

“OK,” I say, “but Susmita cleaned that place out a couple years ago. Unless you’re looking for back issues of Photoshop Magazine, you’re probably out of luck.”

“Ah. Should’ve figured. Well, see you in a bit.”

The dragonfly robot shoots away at a surprising velocity - at a guess, maybe 40 miles an hour. I don’t know much about technology, but I know enough to be impressed. I wonder if that’s one of her flying reconnaissance bots or just a toy. I’ll find out soon enough.

I head for Ocean Drive, where hundreds of people are waiting for Miriam’s robot show. This should be interesting, and not a little terrifying. 

I wonder how Susmita’s holding up. She’s been freaking out since yesterday, feeling outclassed by Miriam.

  
  


SUSMITA

How am I holding up? In a word, not good. Two words.

_ Deep breath. I can do this. She’s a colleague. I can do this. _

  
  


TINA

Of course you can. You’re a smart, strong, sensual woman. And Miriam respects you. 

  
  


SUSMITA

Sure, I’m smart. But I’m not a genius. Miriam’s a genius.

  
  


TINA

You  _ are _ a genius. I mean, I’m smart, but you’re way, way smarter than me. What’s your IQ?

  
  


SUSMITA

Well, I don’t really believe in that stuff, but according to Mensa? 155.

  
  


TINA

Holy shit. That’s amazing. 140 is considered genius. They say Stephen Hawking’s was 162.

  
  


SUSMITA

Yeah, and believe me, Miriam’s a lot closer to Hawking than me. 

  
  


TINA

Seven points is pretty close.

  
  


SUSMITA

I read her Doctoral thesis, Tina, reviewed her work. She’s on a whole other plane than almost all of her colleagues were. So is Anais. Miriam makes machines think, Anais makes machines work well enough to keep up with how well Miriam makes them think. They would have changed the world. They were working on a design for a floating city on the ocean - something that could support a population of one million - that would be built almost entirely by self-replicating robots, including  _ nanobots _ . The idea was to use them as homes for people being displaced by rising sea levels. 

They also had a design for an arcology - a single structure with its own ecosystem that could support, again, a million people, food production and all. They were going to 3D-print the building blocks of the future and use robots to construct it. 

And they had the goods. This wasn’t an Elon Musk vaporware concept. They had the designs and as of last year, the technology. With like $1 billion in funding, they could have had a floating city built by 2032.

  
  


TINA

Yeah, but how do you get a billion dollars in funding?

  
  


SUSMITA

By naming your city Wells Fargoville.

  
  


TINA

Oh. Look, Sus, you’ve got to pull yourself together. I think you’re every bit as smart as Miriam. She just had a head start building her dream.

  
  


SUSMITA

Yeah - because she started at Princeton when she was  _ 14 _ . 

  
  


TINA

Wow.

  
  


SUSMITA

Yeah. Wow.

  
  


TINA

Listen - this is ridiculous. You are insanely smart. Miriam knows that. Have you ever thought that maybe she’s paying so much attention to you because she sees you as someone she can collaborate with? Someone who can help her build her vision. She respects you, Sus. 

Well, that or she has a crush on you.

  
  


SUSMITA

Yeah, right.

  
  


TINA

Or both. The point is, you’re worthy, alright? You are  _ not  _ outclassed. Out-performed maybe, so far. But if Miriam and Anais are going to build the future, I think they want you on their team. I think they’re impressed by what you’ve done here--

  
  


SUSMITA

It’s nothing. I just got us networked.

  
  


TINA

You did way more than that. No other colony on earth has anything resembling our tech infrastructure. 

Most of humanity is gone, Sus, along with most of our smartest people. You’re one of the last geniuses standing. Do you know how much I envy your intelligence - and I consider myself a very smart person - smart enough to know, in exquisite detail, just how much smarter you are. And if that’s not good enough for you, fuck you, because my opinion is worth as much as Miriam’s. 

For God’s sake, appreciate what you have! Most people go through life in a fog of vague perception of the workings of the world around them. You  _ understand  _ things. You understand math, and the universe is  _ made _ of math. Do you have any idea how it feels to live in a universe made of calculus when you barely passed Algebra? 

  
  


SUSMITA

I’m sorry. I just... I can’t stand not being the smartest. I was always the smartest, and that’s what got me through the bullying and the taunting and having no love life. And now...

  
  


TINA

And now you’re only one of the five smartest on the continent, and no one’s bullying you and you have more love life than you can handle. Deal with it.

  
  


SUSMITA

You’re right. You’re right. 

OK, let’s do this.

  
  


TINA

Yes, let’s.

  
  


COURTNEY

I’ve never seen Ocean Drive this crowded. Art Crawl had nothing on this. Most of the town has come out to meet the robots and their creators. But mostly the robots.

There’s an explosion of indistinct vocalizing, and some cheers, as the big vehicle from Princeton rounds the corner out of the park in the distance and onto West Ocean Drive. It’s moving pretty slowly, however, so the cheering dies down and we wait patiently for about three minutes for it to arrive. 

It has six highly flexible wheels - not tires; they look like someone took a mold of the tread pattern on a giant all-weather tire with some ultra-advanced polymer and made the wheel out of that. 

Each pair of wheels is attached to one of the three segments of the vehicle, and the segments are connected by that kind of rubber-looking accordion segment they use to connect the front and rear sections of double-long busses. The body looks like a Star Trek shuttlecraft, but about 50% larger, wider proportionally, and divided in three.

On the side are the words “Princeton Rover One”

It’s bitchin’ cool, is what I’m saying. And very impressive.

As it rolls onto our section of Ocean Drive and stops in front of Bob’s Burgers, it’s greeted by cheers and gasps. It’s an intimidating machine. When it stops, I expect to hear the hydraulic hiss I associate with city buses, but it ceases movement silently.

I also expect a hiss when the front section opens up and Miriam steps out; and I expect the door to open vertically. But I’ve watched too many sci-fi movies -- there’s just a click as it slides open horizontally like the rear door of a minivan. 

Miriam leaps out and hugs Susmita, who has been waiting here nervously for about 15 minutes but relaxes completely in the wake of the embrace.

“Hey kiddo, good to see ya!” says Miriam. She places her hands on Susmita’s shoulders and leans back, taking her in. “Smart  _ and  _ pretty. Anais better watch out. Tina!”

Tina gets a big hug, as do the twins. Then Miriam introduces herself to the mayor and engages her in a conversation I can’t quite make out.

For a geek with no social skills, Miriam is pretty damn smooth.

While all of this is going on, I notice Anais wandering slowly into the fray, looking as if it’s taking all the willpower she has to do so. The woman needs some help. Might as well be me.

I approach her, trying to exude friendliness and harmlessness. Maybe it’s working - she’s clearly uncomfortable being greeted, but she doesn’t flinch when I say “Hi, I’m Courtney. Anais, right?”

“Right.” 

Anais is tall and just this side of painfully slim, but it’s obvious she’s one of those rare individuals actually genetically designed to be skinny. She’s pale, with long, jet-black hair, and wearing a dress of no particular shape or color. Looking at her, it’s hard to imagine her as an engineer, brandishing a soldering gun, building mechanical marvels. 

“You want to come inside the restaurant and have a drink or something?” I ask. “Get away from the crowd?”

“Yes,” she says, simply.

No one’s manning the restaurant, so I get us both some soda from the machine, explaining “there are thousands of the big syrup packets these things use left in town, and the stuff’s practically non-biodegradable. We’ll have soda for most of the next decade. Well, Coke and Pepsi, anyway.” 

I add ice, grab a few straws, and bring our drinks over to the booth and slide in across from her. She’s palpably more comfortable away from the crowd.

“Thanks,” she says, emphatically. “God, I haven’t had soda like this in ages. I mean we have cans at the university, but fountain drinks are different.”

“Yeah, I know, right?” I say. “What I really miss is milkshakes, though. And I’m afraid I’ll never taste one again.”

“You can use soy milk,” she suggests. I make a face. “Yeah, it’s not the same. There’s certain culinary experiences you can’t have without exploiting animals. And you know, I was a vegan, but if this guy Bob offers me a turkey burger, I won’t refuse.”

“Good call. The man’s an artist.”

“So I hear,” she says.

The door opens with a jingle, and Miriam pops her head in. “Hey, A, I’m about to do the demo. Care to join me.”

“No,” says Anais. “You should go, though,” she tells me, “it’s really cool.”

“You don’t mind sitting by yourself for a while?”

“Are you kidding?” she says. “It was my minor in college.”

“OK,” I say, placing my hand on hers. “See you in a bit.”

  
  


SUSMITA

I’ll take it from here, Court. I can explain what we’re looking at better.

  
  


COURTNEY

Oh, good. I was going to ask.

  
  


SUSMITA

Miriam opens the rear hatch of the vehicle and a two-foot-long mechanical dragonfly zips out, to delighted oohs and ahs. It treats us to a brief air show, showing off its maneuverability. Then it stops in the middle of the street, about 15 feet up, and slowly rotates 360 degrees.

Miriam narrates, voice raised to be heard by the entire crowd. “It’s scanning the area to make a 3D model of the terrain, which in this case is the road and the building around it. Normally, it will be working in less developed areas.”

Rotation complete, it moves straight up to a height of about 100 feet. “Now it’s going to scan the tops of the buildings and get a layout of the general area.” Again, the device rotates slowly in a circle.

“All of the processing is going on in the Rover, which is why this unit can move the way it does for great distances. It weighs about 2 ounces, and most of that is the mechanism that moves the wings.” Holy shit. “Cramming enough computing power into it to do the heavy lifting itself would have more than quadrupled the weight. Hold on...”

While the robot completes its business, Miriam returns to the vehicle and rolls out a huge LED TV on an oversized AV cart. “In about two minutes,” she says, “the rig in the Rover will finish analyzing the data sent from the dragonfly and generate a detailed 3D model of this block of Ocean Drive. I have it set up to present the results in a repeating loop, so take it in once then let someone in back of you get a look. Thanks.”

The crowd has already concentrated around the TV, but so tightly that almost no one will get a look. Instinctively, I take over and do a little crowd control. “OK, everyone, back up. It’s a big TV.” (And it is - at least 70 inches.) “Kids and anyone who doesn’t mind sitting on the ground in front. Nice big circle. No need to push. It’s on a loop.” 

I talk them through this routine about three times and now the crowd is arranged about as optimally as can be expected. I’m very proud of myself. Miriam gives me a big hug. “Thanks,” she says. 

Now the presentation starts.

A rotating wireframe of Ocean Drive is built up - crude at first, but adding more and more lines until you can make out the features on the faces of people looking up at the dragonfly-bot (!) Then the wireframes of the people disappear, along with the Princeton Rover.

Now as the image rotates, shading is added, first all grey, then gradations of gray, until the model looks almost like a black and white image of Ocean Drive. 

Then all hell breaks loose. The model runs through a different color scheme every few seconds - just long enough to parse the text describing what the gradations represent: dimensions, elevation, materials, temperature, air movement patterns, particles per million of various substances in the air, and a dozen other figures. When it’s cycled through all of its metrics at street level, the view rises, and we see the area for about a mile around - which includes part of the park, most of Wonder Wharf, and a bit of ocean, and it cycles through the same metrics at a somewhat lower resolution, though the details on the underlying image are still quite sharp.

Now the presentation freezes and the word “Done” appears in large letters at the top of the screen. Below is a summary of the data collected by category. This fades out, replaced by “Node location recommendation: none. Usable node already present. Thanks, Susmita.”

Susmita turns red. Well, redder. Miriam kisses her forehead. 

It looks like it’s going to take about half an hour for everyone to get a good view of the 3-minute sequence. Miriam, with the help of Susmita, the Lara twins, and Tina, starts moving various unrecognizable pieces of metal and plexiglass out of the van and onto the street. I figure I’ll use the time to talk some more with Anais.

  
  


SUSMITA

When everyone has seen the presentation, Miriam gets their attention again. “Hey there. Everyone good? Great” She steps in front of the enormous screen. “So, all of those materials on the ground there were 3D printed in the vehicle over the past four days. Normally the builder robots would bring them out as needed, but I didn’t want to distract from the video. Now, if you’ve got about 15 minutes, you can watch them build a node on the roof of Bob’s Burgers. As the presentation mentioned, the node isn’t absolutely necessary, thanks to my protege if she wants to be, Susmita, here...”

Is it hot in here, or am I just glowing at 1000 lumens? She wants to mentor me. Hand me the keys to the kingdom, or at least a copy of them. Holy. Shit. 

OK, hold it together, Sus. You’re documenting an event. Focus.

“However, we wanted to show off what the bots can do, and when the node is finished, it will instantly integrate with the local network and boost its speed, range and bandwidth by about 1000 percent. You’ll all have to upgrade your computers to take advantage of it, unless you’ve already salvaged all the high-end rigs in the area.”

She turns to face the Rover and says “Bot, do your thing.”

Now a silver stick-figure praying mantis, or something very like one, speeds out of the back of the Rover. Its four upper limbs sport about four joints, at the end of each of which is a different tool of some kind, none of which I recognize. The “head” is a globe like the head of the dragonfly-bot, but bigger, and its camera is continually spinning. There are also little plastic domes at multiple points on the legs that contain cameras, presumably scanning the ground for obstacles and irregularities. 

I notice that the bot’s “thorax” is actually considerably thicker than the limbs, particularly at the bottom (presumably for balance) and that there are bulges in the limbs themselves that by their shape are probably there to accommodate servomechanisms. The “feet” sport not wheels, but little caterpillar treads. I notice them rolling over pebbles and other bits of detritus with ease, the flexibility of the treads allowing them to do so without affecting the balance of the device in any way.

The bot darts for the pile of Node components, grabs one, snaps it onto its back somehow, and clambers up the facade of Bob’s Burgers and the Belcher residence, as Bob looks on with a mixture of pride and apprehension. When it reaches the roof, it places the component gently on the surface and climbs back down. This sequence of events is repeated about half a dozen times, sometimes with more than one component at once. The node is not going to be very large. It’s basically a 30-inch wide platter with sophisticated circuitry on top of it, covered by a plexiglass dome infused throughout with solar-collecting filaments that power the electronics and coated on its inner surface with a material, the nature of which I don’t understand, that reflects the sun’s heat back out to keep the interior cool. It also protects it from extreme weather conditions. Miriam tells me it can withstand a direct hit by a bolt of lightning without damaging the electronics inside - though the dome itself would be totaled. It’s insanely advanced, but not immune to the laws of physics.

Now the bot is fitting the parts of the node into place, with quick but deliberate movements. We can’t see it directly, but the dragonfly bot is hovering over the roof, and sending video of the mantis-bot’s progress to the giant TV.

The process takes about five minutes. When it’s done, it climbs down the wall for the last time, gives us a mechanical “thumbs up,” and returns to the rover, followed by the dragonfly-bot.

As the rear hatch of the Rover closes behind them, Miriam says “You now have way, way more bandwidth than you can possibly use at the moment, no matter how hard you try. Just to give the node something to do, we’ve liberated a building full of Netflix servers in Trenton, and you should be able to Netflix and chill without an account in about a month when we’ve set up a power source for it.

“And within a year, barring any major setbacks, you’ll be able to communicate with anyone in North America who has an internet-capable device. This is the beginning of a world-spanning wireless network that will be accessible to anyone within 100 miles of a node. 

“If you have technical skills and want to help make this happen faster, talk to me -- later. We need every technical person available - from power-user on up - to get this done without me and Anais dying of sleep deprivation. 

“Thanks for coming out. I can’t wait to take in the town. Seymour’s Bay rocks!” And with that, Miriam grabs me by the hand and leads me into Bob’s Burgers, where we slide into the booth - Miriam next to Anais, me next to Courtney.

We have a lot to talk about. 

Starting with the fact that Miriam’s going to mentor me.

_ Oh, crap, does that mean I’ll have to move to Princeton? _


	11. Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two familiar characters return. Sort of. Maybe.

GENE

I don’t know what I believe in. I mean, if there’s a benevolent loving god, where was he three years ago when most of humanity was dying slowly and horribly, their bodies tearing themselves apart? For that matter, where was he, she, it, or they through all of human history/ The default experience of human life has been abject misery.

Mom and Dad seemed neutral on the subject. It just didn’t come up. We didn’t go to church. We’re Christian by default, and Christ seems like he was a cool dude - if he really existed - but we certainly weren’t indoctrinated. But like everyone else, we were enculturated, and I still have this lingering feeling there’s something out there. 

But even if there is, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t give a shit about humanity, one way or another. If it even knows we exist, it doesn’t care who we love or who we fuck, or whether we use the word “fuck,” or whether we gather on Sundays to praise it. What the hell kind of superior being would behave like any deity in any religion ever created by man?

The point is, we’re on our own. Deity or no, the universe operates under physical laws. Metaphysics are bullshit.

But I have to put that line of reasoning on hold, because I found Ollie Pesto wandering around Bog Harbor today, acting and talking like he was on acid. Actually, his preferred pronouns are they/them. Not because of any gender issue, but because he claims to be both Ollie  _ and  _ Andy now.

Is he insane? Delusional? Probably. Could he have actually encountered his brother’s spirit and merged with it? Maybe. Like a one in a trillion chance. And only that much because I witnessed him and Andy being psychic with each other, many times, in a manner I can’t find a way to refute. Maybe there was something I missed. Maybe they were just preternaturally intuitive about each other. Let’s just say I can’t explain their connection. 

Maybe Andy really was “calling” Ollie three years ago.

I’m trying to keep an open mind. 

So, fine. Andy’s back. In some form. Maybe.

“We met crossing the Benjamin Franklin bridge in opposite directions. I -- hi, this is Ollie now -- I have to admit, I was considering jumping. But Andy found me at the last minute.”

I stare straight out the window of the Tesla, trying to concentrate on my driving. I was heading for Princeton but under the circumstances, I figure I should give Ollie-Andy a lift the rest of the way back to Seymour’s Bay.

I’m struggling to engage effectively in our conversation, with its premise that I’m addressing two people in the same body, one of whom died almost three years ago. As I said, I’m keeping my mind open just a crack; but I don’t believe in this “soul” business. When you’re dead, you’re dead.

“Look...um, guys. Ollie. Nothing personal, but I think this Andy thing is your brain’s way of saving itself from jumping off a bridge. And I’m glad it did it, and if this is what it takes to keep you alive, I’ll accept it and go along with it. But I hope you’ll forgive me for not really believing it. I’m just... I’m so glad you’re back. I love you, man, and I loved Andy. But I hope you’ll allow me my skepticism.”

He laughs. “Of course, man. I know it’s ridiculous. I know you think I’m delusional, but I’m not irrational - if you get the difference. You’d be nuts to believe me.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “It’s cool, man,” he says.

He goes on: “But it is what it is. We’re not going to lie. But if people want to address us individually, that’s OK. We  _ are _ separate. Heh. It’s kind of crowded in here, to be honest.”

There’s a brief pause, then “This is Andy. I mean, you don’t have to believe that, but this is Andy. This is going to be hard. Most people won’t believe I’m really here - if they have any sense. I mean, I’m a freaking ghost, how fucked up is that? But please, just... talk to me, OK? Suspend -- what’s that phrase? Suspend your disbelief. Someone has to, or I’m gonna freak out.”

Fine. Whether I’m doing it for one person or two, I need to keep the contents of the cranium of the body seated next to me from falling into a pit of despair.

“OK, Andy. Deal.”

Andy (I’m going to work from the premise that he’s real. Just assume there’s an asterisk after his name, OK?) is in tears.

“Oh, God, thank you. Thank you, man. I know it’s weird. Thank you.”

I’m tearing up a little, too. “It’s cool, man. I missed you. We all did. I mean, we all missed so many people. It was like a ghost town for a while. So to speak. But you should see the place now.”

“Yeah, I know. You guys are the talk of the tri-state area. And I hear you had robots last month. Really cool. I floated through Princeton last year, and it blew my mind, what they were doing.”

“And nobody saw you?” I asked - realizing after I said it that it was a delicate question.

“Nuh,” says Andy, casually. “Only Ollie could see me. Something to do with our connection. It’s weird being identical twins, man. Always was.”

“Yeah, I could tell. Um, speaking of weird, what was it like being a ghost?” Fact or fiction, I’m curious.

Andy chuckles sadly, a brief exhalation. “Sucked.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Lonely as hell. You can’t talk to anyone. At first, it’s fun being a voyeur, checking out what your friends are up to - but that gets old fast. So you drift. I’ve been all over the place. I’ve been through New York, Philly, Boston. I had to know what happened in the big cities. It was... Jesus Christ, it was horrible. You can’t imagine. Maybe you think you can, but you can’t.

“At least I couldn’t smell the decay. That’s the other thing about being a ghost - very limited senses other than sight and hearing. I don’t know why. Seems arbitrary. But that’s how it works, for whatever reason. I know Ollie said it before, but understand - I know this whole thing is preposterous. 

“Actually, more than anything, I was pissed off. I didn’t want to be a ghost, or whatever I was. It’s awful and stupid and lonely. I wouldn’t say I was constantly miserable - you learn to detach pretty quickly. But I did feel like I was being punished, or at least being treated cruelly. By someone. Or something.

“Here's the thing - no one tells you anything. No one explains. The only thing I know about the afterlife that I didn’t know before is that there  _ is  _ one. At least if you turn into a ghost. If there’s a heaven or hell, or a version of the afterlife that doesn’t involve this ghost stuff, I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry, man. That’s awful.” I think for a moment. “Did you ever meet any other ghosts?”

“Nope. You’d think I would have, with so many dead people. If there’s a reason to think this is Ollie being crazy, it’s that. If being a ghost is a thing, even if it’s rare, why didn’t I encounter others? Seven and a half billion dead people. Then again, why would he make up something so... dammit, I wish I’d paid attention in English class... something so counter... counter...?”

“Counterintuitive.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I mean, my God, am I the only one? Or are there billions of ghosts but we can’t see each other? It’s... I... You know what, I don’t want to think about it anymore. At least for a while. Talk to Ollie, OK.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn't. I'm just overstimulated. I just need a time out,” he says. “Hey,” he adds, “it’s good to be back. I love you, man. I love everybody in Seymour’s Bay. I can’t wait to see everyone again.”

Ollie’s eyes close, then open again. He looks at me, smiling innocently. “This is pretty fucked up, right?” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “But I’m down with it. Welcome back.”

“Thanks. Hey - could we stop here? I think I need a nap. Haven’t slept in days.”

We’re on Route 36 and - I hope you can understand how wonderful this feels - there’s traffic. Not much, and it’s almost all Teslas, which is surreal, but there’s traffic.

“Well, if I just pull over, someone’s going to check to see what’s wrong. And the next exit is Seymour’s Bay. I guess I can find a quiet spot in the park before we head for the main drag.”

“Thanks. Just give me like half an hour, OK?”

“You got it,” I say, but Ollie is already snoring.

As I take Seymour’s Bay exit, I think “ _ this is going to be one weird-ass day _ .” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this should be interesting.
> 
> At the moment, I have no idea whether Ollie is crazy or Andy is real. But I have a lot of hope for him/them as a plot device - they've seen some things, man.


	12. Crisis of Faith

LOUISE

Unsurprisingly, Mom has no trouble believing she’s talking to both Ollie and Andy.

“Oh, it’s so wondahful!” She gives Ollie a big hug - a little too hard and a little too long. Which is normal. “I was so worried - about both of you.” says Mom, kissing his forehead half a dozen times with a _mwah! mwah! mwah!_ sound.

We’re in Chez Belcher (pronounced “Shay Bel- _shay_ ,”), which is crowded. The whole family - all five of us; plus dad’s girlfriend, Andrea; Mom’s boyfriend [gagging noise] Calvin, and Andy and Ollie. Luckily, they’re sharing a body, so that helps. 

Dad’s not impressed. “Lin, don’t encourage this, he needs help. Sorry, Ollie, no offense.”

Ollie is entirely sanguine. “None taken, Mr. B. You’re a rational man.”

“Oh, Good,” says Dad. “And I’m really glad you’re back, Ollie. And Andy, if you’re actually in there. Which, you know...”

“We’re glad to _be_ back, Mr. B.”

Ollie is given the friendly third degree by everyone present until Mom calls out “lunchtime!” and we gather around the dining room table. 

Mom puts down plates of turkey hash - incorporating a few pounds of ground turkey dad had set aside in the freezer for a special occasion, not envisioning this particular presentation.

Ollie’s portion is much larger than anyone else’s. “Eating for two!” says Mom, happily.

"Lin..." drones Dad, pointlessly.

I take a few bites. It’s actually really good. 

“Exquisite, darling,” says Calvin. Oh, barf.

But seriously, since when was Mom a good cook? Maybe Mr. Fischoeder [barf again] is having a good effect on her. Or maybe she found a really good recipe and followed the instructions correctly - which, honestly, is itself an improvement on her previous cooking skills.

Even dad is pleased. “Yeah, Lin, this is really great. Good job.”

Still, hash by itself is not a comfortable meal. It gets really heavy and oppressive really fast, which is why it’s a relief when Mom serves up slices of cornbread. And again, it’s surprisingly good. Moist, tasty... you know what, if this is somehow Fischoeder’s doing, she has my permission to marry him. 

Andrea is particularly effusive. “Oh, wow. Linda, this is the best cornbread I’ve ever had. If it’s a secret recipe, guard it. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands.” 

I like Andrea. We’ve had a few conversations. Girl talk, and Pinky and the Brain, taking over the world talk. She really is out of Dad’s league. But you know what? Dad deserves someone out of his league. 

Not to get all soppy, but I am so glad my folks are happy. Even if one of them is with [Barf 3: The Barfening] Calvin Fiscoeder. They’ve been through so much. I mean, we all have - and we all deserve happiness, them included.

When we’re all done devouring Linda Belcher’s improbable gourmet chow, I start picking up dishes. “Hey, Gene, Tina, give me a hand getting this stuff into the dishwasher.”

Dad is impressed. “You guys never did this voluntarily when you lived here. What changed?” 

“We’re grownups now, Dad. Also, we don’t _have_ to"

“Right,” says Gene. “Our bodies, our choice!”

“Can we help?” says Ollie. 

“No way,” says Gene. “You’re the guests of honor.”

When we get to the kitchen, I announce: “OK, kid conference!”

“You just said we were grownups,” says Tina.

“We’re young at heart,” explains Gene.

“Look, Gene,” I say, “What’s the deal with Ollie? I mean for real.”

Gene sighs. “The deal is exactly what he says it is. At least for all intensive purposes.”

“It’s ‘all intents and purposes,’ Gene,” says Tina, exasperated “You should know that.”

“Grammar Nazi,” says Gene.

“Heil Strunk!” counters Tina. I don’t get it.

Enough, already. “Guys. Focus. Gene, are you saying Andy’s really in there?”

Gene notices that we’re all standing around still holding dishes, so he starts rinsing his pile off in the sink. “I’m saying he might as well be. And we have to treat him like he is, or _whoever’s_ in there is going to decompensate.”

“So,” I say, kind of miffed, “we just go along with this insanity.”

“I think it’s sweet,” says Tina. “Kind of poignant, really.”

“Yeah, well you would, Miss Friend-Fiction.”

Tina ignores my dig. “Who does it hurt, Louise.”

Is she kidding? “Ollie. It hurts Ollie.”

“How?” asks Gene.

“How? It leaves him crazy and untreated.”

“And that hurts him _how_?” says Gene.

He’s answered by a new voice. “It doesn’t.”

It’s Ollie. Tina and I are so surprised - and mortified that he's overheard us - that we drop our dishes. Five ceramic plates hit the linoleum and shatter. 

I expect Mom to come running and have a fit, but she just yells “You OK in there?”

Gene yells back. “Yeah. It’s a bit of a mess, but we can handle it.”

That, it seems, is the end of that. Gene and Tina start cleaning up, but I’m frozen. Ollie approaches me and gives me a hug. A long, soul-deep embrace that leaves me dizzy somehow.

“It’s OK, Louise. I know it’s nuts. I also know it’s true, but you’d be nuts to believe me.” He’s staring into my eyes as intensely as he hugged me. I’m transfixed. I try to do that “eyes are the window to the soul” thing, and maybe he’s seeing mine, but I can’t see his. All I see is the eyes of a prophet. The kind of person who could get you to drink poison Kool-Aid if you let him. But the only other thing I sense is benevolence.

Gene is right. The last thing Ollie needs right now is his sanity.

“I’m sorry, Ollie. And Andy, if you’re in there.”

“I am,” says... somebody. “And no apology necessary. Here let us help you guys clean up.”

TINA

“So,” says Susmita, “Gene told me about Ollie but he was a little wigged out and incoherent. I want your perspective. To review: Ollie thinks he found his dead brother’s spirit in Philadelphia and merged with it, so there’s now two separate people in his one body.”

Gene picked Sus up at Princeton, where she’s been for the last five days, and brought her back this afternoon. She’s been spending about two-thirds of her time there - sometimes staying over, sometimes commuting - where Miriam is mentoring the bejeezus out of her. I can’t understand what she’s saying most of the time. She’s living on some kind of elevated plane of existence, swimming in the infinite ocean of science, and learning how to tame any sharks she encounters and make them work for her. 

Or something. The metaphor needs some work, but it’s got potential.

“Yes,” I say. “Exactly.”

"That's all I could get out of Gene that made any sense - I mean grammatically. The rest of the drive he was lost in thought, and not in a good way. I think he's having trouble coping."

"Weird. He seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing earlier."

"I think hearing himself tell someone else made him realize how crazy it all is," says Susmita.

"So, what do you think?" I ask.

"Well, I'm a materialist. No way does Andy exist in any form at this point. So, yeah, Ollie's delusional. But they were practically the same person anyway. You're not going to hear 'Andy' spout an opinion, or have a reaction to something, that Ollie wouldn't. 

"I didn't really know them, but my instinct is that at some critical point in their early development, they failed to hit a benchmark where they would learn to see each other as separate beings - the way a baby has to get to a certain point before they realize that their mother is not an extension of themselves.

“I don’t think Andy and Ollie literally thought they were the same person, even on a subconscious level. But I do think the lines were kind of blurry. Because they were so similar and had blurred boundaries, their intuition about each other made them seem psychic. But they weren’t, because that’s not a thing. 

“So, no, Andy’s not back. But there’s no reason not to address Ollie by his preferred pronouns. How did that John Lennon song go? ‘Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright.’

The only problem I can foresee is this: if we spend time around Ollie slash Andy, we’re going to have to find some way to differentiate between ‘the Lara twins’ and ‘the Pesto twins.’”

Good point. “Maybe we can call the Laras ‘the twins’ and Ollie-Andy ‘the twin,' singular.”

Susmita smiles. “You’re so good with words, T. I think I envy that the way you envy my math. There are a lot of different kinds of intelligence, Tina. You’re your own kind of genius. Really.”

I smile back. I could argue, but why bother? “Thanks,” I say.

  
  


JODI

I don’t want to even think about this soul and spirit stuff. I don’t believe for a second that Andy is back and living inside his brother’s brain. It’s a lovely romantic notion. But no.

The problem is, whenever I hear this kind of thing, the Catholic in me wakes up and says “Maybe it’s real. People have come back from the dead before. Three days, three years, what’s the difference in the grand scheme of things?”

And when I reply “bullshit - there was never any Jesus Christ, and if there _was_ an actual first-century messianic Rabbi named Yeshua ben Joseph of Nazareth (there wasn’t), he didn’t rise from the dead. It’s just a plagiarized myth drawn from a dozen previous mythological cosmologies. Weren’t you paying attention when we read all that Joseph Campbell?” she looks at me with those sad Anime eyes and starts bawling.

Indoctrination is a funny thing. No matter how strongly you reject it, it’s always there in the back of your mind, whispering “what if you’re wrong?” Not even in a fear-of-hellfire way, just... “What if you’re missing something? Depriving yourself of something transcendent? Something beautiful?”

Then I remind it of the Crusades and it shuts the fuck up. For a while.

At least I have my roommates to support me in my rationality. Well, except for two, and you’ll never guess which ones.

“I don’t know, man,” says Grant, shifting his big beautiful mass on the sofa from a seated position to a casually supine one, hands behind his head. “There’s a lotta shit we don’t understand. I’m not saying there’s things like souls the way we think of them, or that there’s anything to metaphysics. Anything that happens does so within the limits of the laws of physics. 

“But maybe some... quality of Andy really was floating around out there. I’m not saying I believe it, but I’m not ready to reject it, either. Not entirely. I mean, I don’t believe in ESP, not for a second, but you’ve seen some of the weird shit that goes on between me and Dean. Maybe certain people can tap into connections that exist between people in a way we can’t observe. Maybe somewhere in the 11th dimension -- you know there's at least 11 spatial dimensions, right? - there’s some kind of freakin’... cord connecting me and Dean, and if one of us died, maybe the cord would still be there, tethering his, well, that quality of our consciousness that we call a soul, to the other.”

“Sweetheart,” I say, slumping in the love seat perpendicular to the couch, “it’s really amazing that you can pull all that stuff out of your ass while lying down...” 

He laughs heartily.

“...but you do know it's bullshit, right? You’re grasping at straws. Start believing that stuff and we can register this house as a church for tax purposes. I mean, if there were a government and money and stuff. I keep forgetting about that.”

“Jojo,” he says - his nickname for me. I like it. “I don’t believe any of that stuff. And I won’t accept anything like it without solid, empirical evidence. Which is not going to happen. But I don’t want to close my mind so hard to off-the-wall hypotheses that I refuse to move on to the experiment stage.”

“Yeah, but...”

“Jojo, I don’t believe your friend Andy is back, and I don’t believe that there’s any rational reason to believe it's even possible. I’m just saying, I’m not _absolutely_ convinced it’s _utterly_ impossible. So why not give Ollie the benefit of the doubt if it will keep him happy?”

“Because,” I say, now piqued and sliding headlong toward anger, “there’s a very short path from everyone agreeing to go along with one person’s delusion to keep them happy, and an entire community believing the impossible! And you know how that kind of thing usually works out.”

“The ‘slippery slope’ argument?” he says.

“The ‘humans are fucking idiots’ argument! 'Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities'! People will always pray to the gods that feed them and get them laid. But give them a shot at transcending death, and they’ll start forcing _other_ people to pray to _their_ personal god, to validate their beliefs. You know very well that’s how it always goes. I won’t be a part of it.”

He sits up and smiles compassionately at me. “You really want to believe it, don’t you?”

God damn him, making me lose my shit. “YES! Of course I do! I can’t help it, I was brainwashed. Why do you think I’m so scared? I don’t want to die. I want my life to have meaning. And if someone convinced me there was an afterlife, I mean _really_ convinced me, I might kill someone to stop them from making me doubt it. I’m as bad as any Evangelist. Worse - because I know better, and I’d still be capable of bringing society down in flames to protect my precious beliefs if they said death wasn’t the end.

“We can't let that meme slip back into human civilization this time around. Don’t you see how dangerous it is?” 

I’m pacing and hyperventilating. Grant stands and envelops me in the kind of true bear-hug only a true bear can give. “I’m sorry Jojo, but that meme is never going away. As long as people fear death, they’ll look for an out. And when they can’t find one, they’ll make one up. But don’t worry, _I_ still believe when you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“No 11th dimension tendrils, then?”

“No. Actually, the _seventh_ dimension is much more promising...”

I smack him on his barrel chest. 

“Stop it. For a moment there, I genuinely wanted to hear all about the seventh dimension. I felt a surge of hope. Don't you see how insidious this is?”

He holds my face in his hands. “Yes, I do.” He kisses me tenderly, then returns me to his previous embrace, already in progress. ‘I was raised Catholic in Central America. My mother was as psychotic as yours, but not as nice. Religion scares the hell out me, and I don’t want to plant the seeds of a new one.

“But when it comes to Ollie - a few people will believe him, but only the ones who already enjoy believing that kind of thing. Believe me, there's not going to be a 'First Church of Ollie-ism.'”

“I’m not so sure,” I say. “But I guess you’re right. I’m still freaking out, though. Wanna come upstairs and comfort me some more?”

He laughs. “Jojo, I am gonna comfort your brains out.” 

  
  


GENE

One of the nice things about being polyamorous is when you’re really down, your lovers can gang up on you and make you smile until you mean it.

We’re in a big pile on my room-sized bed. Me, Court, Joss, Jess, Mel, and Scott. We haven’t all be going at it at the same time - they took shifts, God bless them, fucking me silly (except for Jess, who’s strictly gay, close to a Kinsey 6, and strictly involved with Jocelyn). Having a lot of sex doesn’t actually change whatever’s got you down (unless, of course, you’re feeling down because you’re not having enough sex), but it can sure hell change your perspective on life.

So my friend, Ollie, is as insane as he was four hours ago; I just don’t care. I mean, I care about _him_ a lot, I’m just over it where his delusion is concerned. Let him have it, if it makes him happy, and let it go. Cue Idina Menzel. (Not the Frozen song; something from Wicked.)

(Maybe "Defying Sanity.")

Currently, I'm adrift in a warm matrix of competing afterglows, watching Mel and Joss make out in a friendly, not particularly intense way. I think they have some leftover, free-floating sexual energy and figured there was no use letting it go to waste. I’m too spent to appreciate the scene, but Jess is _really_ fascinated. 

Scott, Court, and I agree, with a few silent head gestures, that we should find a change of scenery and let nature take its course. 

As we head downstairs, Scott says “Well, _finally_. I can’t believe that took a year to happen.”

“You seem pleased,” says Court, amused. “Most gay guys I know are skeeved out by the mere _idea_ of vaginas - three in one place, interacting... they'd barf at the thought.”

“Hey, that’s a stereotype with absolutely _every_ basis in reality,” says Scott. “But I’m not one of those guys. I’m a more of a 'house gay.' I think female sexuality is beautiful. Frankly, it’s men who have the ridiculous genitals. Not that you’ll hear _me_ complaining.”

As we enter the downstairs living area, Millie and Dan give us a round of applause.

Courtney turns beet red. Scott takes a bow.

“Were we really that loud?” I ask.

“Nah,” says Dan. "But we’ve been hanging out down here because we knew your ridiculously numerous lovers were planning to cheer you up the old fashioned way, and it’s been like four hours now.”

“We could have been sleeping it off, you know.”

“Yeah, well,” says Millie, “you _were_ also that loud.”

Crap _._ “Well, I’m not self-conscious about that at all, Courtney. You?”

Courtney has zero chill at the moment. She has completely disappeared behind her extravagantly long hair, a blond Cousin Itt. 

“Oh, come on, Court,” says Millie. “If it helps, I don’t think you were one of the loud ones. Didn't sound like you.” She pats the sofa next to her, gesturing for Courtney to join her. “Come on, sit. I’ll braid some of that absurd hair of yours.”

I look at Millie’s braced, twisted arms. Her hands don’t appear to be in particularly bad shape, but still, braiding hair is going to involve the muscles in her forearms, too. “You can do that?” I ask. “Isn’t that going to, in medical terms, hurt like a motherfucker.”

“Everything I do hurts, Gene,” she says, smiling. Turning her head to face Dan, she adds “some things are worth it.” Dan strokes her hair.

Scott and I watch for a while as Millie braids Courtney’s hair, clearly in pain, yet blissed out. I don’t think she ever had a friend to do normal girl things with. She needs this.

So does Court. She’s relaxed now in a way she wasn’t after we made love, and I’m a little mad at myself for that, but it’s not like she didn’t...I mean, she never fakes it with me. Or does she?

Also, it’s entirely possible that her mood is not entirely dictated by my performance in the sack. Maybe it’s not all about me. An outlandish theory, I'll grant you, but not strictly impossible based on our current understanding of how relationships work.

God, I’m a dick. And I’ll spare you the effort of making the obvious “you are what you eat” joke. God, you people are immature.

When Millie has braided about a foot of Court’s hair, Scott and I slip away to the next room over - also a living room. Or a rec-room. Or a den. The point is, it has sofas.

But we flop on the floor and watch the ceiling fan spin slowly. We both like to do this thing where you choose a single blade to follow around with your eyes, rather than just watching each blade flash past. It gets you dizzy pretty fast. So does the stuff in the hand-rolled cigarette Scott pulls from his pocket. He’s been growing his own hybrid of Afghan Kush and Super Lemon Haze that he calls Girl Scout Kooshies. 

The Sativa is envigorating and the Indica is a powerful relaxant. Blend them, and you get the pot equivalent of a speedball, which is to say it mellows you out and wakes you up at the same time. Genius.

I’m not sure how, but he’s already lit the thing and is offering me the first toke. It would be impolite to decline, so I take a nice, hearty hit.

“Easy there, Bubba, I’ve been working on this stuff, remember? You just did the equivalent of downing a two-liter bottle of soda in one gulp.”

“We who are about to die,” I declare, “salute you!”

“More like ‘we who are about to sleep with our eyes open for 36 hours’” says Scott.

He takes a few, more judicious, hits of his blend, and says “Amazing, isn’t it? Doing that braiding is hurting Millie. A lot. I could tell, just watching her movements. It's like hot needles stabbing into her hands and arms. But I’ve never seen her so happy.” He contemplates this for a full minute, then says “people are fucking tough, man,” he concludes. Not deep, but he’s choked up as he says it.

Have I mentioned that I love this guy? 

Courtney was my first love, and my first lover, but it was Scott who grew me up. He’s four years older than me and about three centuries more mature, but he’s helped me catch up a bit. He’s also one of those odd guys who are so obviously gay you could tell their orientation from five blocks away, yet exhibits not a single stereotypical, fey behavior or affectation. He’s not swishy, and not remotely effeminate, at least no more than the average hipster ever was. I can’t parse it.

But whatever that’s about, he’s pretty much the perfect man. He’s so smart, talented, compassionate, and kind it’s almost disgusting. And it’s funny, I can’t imagine _not_ being with Courtney or Joss (or Mel, these days); but I can’t imagine being with any man _but_ Scott. 

I’m not saying he’s the only guy I’m gay for. Not by a longshot. I guess I’m just homomonogamous and heteropolygynous. But regardless of how you describe it in Latin (or is that Greek?), in English, I’m the luckiest sonofabitch in the world. 

I drift off wondering how I’m going to heal my friend, and whether I should try.

  
  



	13. Turing Pest

TINA

Seymour’s Bay just gained three new citizens, all silicon-based. The first is Manny, the Mantis-like robot that built our Internet node. Since Manny’s premiere performance three months ago, Anais has made several key improvements to her builder-bot design, so she and Miriam donated Manny to us. It wasn’t really charity or even a gift. It’s a chance for Miriam to experiment with her AI algorithms and run her protege through her paces.

She has given Manny a distinct personality and has instructed her to find and carry out repairs and improvements throughout the town wherever she detects the necessity. This is actually an incredibly complex mission - Manny has to recognize the condition of buildings and other infrastructure in great detail without specific instructions and determine whether a repair or upgrade is necessary by doing its own research and contextualizing its observations. If that sounds complicated, trust me, it doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Manny’s function here is, above all, to test and build on Susmita’s development as an AI programmer. She’s not writing code - she will eventually, but it will take years for her to get to that point - she’s Manny’s teacher. And the better she understands Miriam’s AI work, the better she can instruct the metal mantis how to learn new tasks on the fly. As it were.

Our other two new cybernetic citizens are simpler souls. Buzz and Whoosh are surveillance dragonfly-bots whose entire purpose is social. They fly around amusing themselves by having races and doing stunts, and occasionally engage people in limited but inevitably hilarious conversations. According to Miriam, about a third of their language data is derived from her favorite standup comedians: Patton Oswalt, Louis CK, Margaret Cho, and Janeanne Garofalo.

Just at the moment, Susmita is teaching Manny to make breakfast. Manny is never going to do this kind of thing once she’s completely autonomous, but the training isn’t for her, it’s for Susmita. Sus has to learn how to program Manny verbally, and Manny has to be able to take verbal instructions from others.

And lest you think this sounds less challenging than writing code, remember that Manny doesn’t know what an egg is. It can look up the definition instantly, but that wouldn’t tell it how many Newtons of force it can hold one with before it breaks. It also doesn’t come pre-programmed with the knowledge of what a refrigerator is, or what an egg carton looks like. It doesn’t know what a stove is. Or what breakfast is, for that matter. 

It can find definitions for any term on demand. And it can parse spoken and written English. But it’s not sentient. There’s nobody home. Susmita tried explaining to me, in a very general sense, how machine learning works, and then how that applies specifically to autonomous artificial intelligences. She lost me after the words “machine learning,” but it was lovely to listen to her talk about her new passion for the next ten minutes, the way it’s lovely to listen to someone speak French even if you don’t speak it.

It’s taken two hours and about seven attempts that will take another hour to clean up, but breakfast is served. Pancakes with dearly-bought (well, bartered for) genuine maple syrup from a colony in Maine. 

(Before I go on, take a moment and think about how one goes about making pancakes. Now imagine teaching someone to make them who doesn’t know what batter, skillets, or spatulas are; someone built and designed to construct wireless Internet nodes; someone who is not sentient, not self-aware. Now imagine getting that machine to make perfect pancakes in under 100 years. You still have no idea how complicated a task this is because I don’t understand the technology well enough to explain it, and Susmita, who does understand, can’t explain it to me because she’s too busy absorbing a continuous information firehose to condense it into layman’s terms.)

And you heard it here first: a robot just made the best pancakes I ever had. The genuine maple syrup helped, but these ‘cakes are moist and fluffy and delicious and I wish Manny were sentient so she could actually appreciate it when I thanked her and gave her insectoid torso a gentle hug. I expected this act to be greeted with derision by the household geek squad, but Susmita, Dean, and Grant followed suit and by the time Jodi hugged her, Manny had learned to hug back.

“Good work, Manny,” says Susmita. “Now take a break and recharge.”

“I could help you clean up - no, haha, too late, you already said recharge,” says Manny, imitating the voice of the robot maid from The Jetsons (one of about a dozen timbres and personalities - and counting - that Manny adopts at her own discretion). She zips off toward the sunroom, declaring, in a 1960s sci-fi robot monotone, “I AM A ROBOT. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.”

She tends to go with that voice whenever someone interacts with her as if she’s sentient and has emotions, as we all did just now. But it’s always with a humorous flair, never harsh. I wonder if Miriam is responsible for that or if Manny developed the response on her own.

Pardon me, I have about 25 pancake fails to clean up.

  
  


JESSICA

Being gay never phased me. My parents were totally mellow about sexuality, and when I came out at 12, their reaction was “oh, ok, cool. Do you want a PBJ or Baloney for lunch?”

Despite being brought up with radical acceptance, and spending the last three years surrounded by happy non-monogamists, I’m still shocked, after three months, to be part of a triad. One with some offshoots - Joss is still involved with Gene, and so is Mel, though less so. Also, Joss has a “side-guy,” Ronny, who also sleeps with Courtney sometimes. 

It’s crazy, but I like it. It’s like all the surviving members of my pre-plague peer group have congealed into this little blob of love and sex and good times. You’d think the culture shock would have worn off by now, but every day feels like a surprise.

I’m not going to get into sex stuff. I’m tempted to wax rhapsodic about, say, last night’s friendly, giggly, silly threesome, but I don’t think I can write a good sex scene. Too self-conscious. Not about the subject - I can talk about the  _ subject _ of sex all day. But describing the act feels too intimate. 

Also, there’s the possibility that if you got me started, I’d be at it for a few hundred pages.

I will say this - Mel is insanely hot. She just makes me weak. With Joss, for both of us, it’s more about the relationship. I mean, there’s definitely desire there, but our most intense feelings for each other are personal, not sexual. I don’t think I can live without Joss, but if she decided she was strictly hetero, I’d be fine, as long we kept each other close.

But Mel is like a sex goddess from some unfamiliar pantheon. You wouldn’t know it most of the time - she has a secret identity: Bass Girl, professional musician. She presents as a complete geek - name a nerdette stereotype, she embodies it. 

There’s a giveaway, though: when she plays bass, I soak my panties.

Ugh. See, I feel so uncomfortable even saying that. How do you guys get through all of those intimate details?

  
  


GENE

Pride in my craftsmanship - in the bed and on the page. 

TINA

The same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice. 8 years of erotic fan- and friend-fiction. Plus elaborate masturbatory fantasies. I mean, I used to spend an hour just leading up to the big moment. Plots, subplots. Sometimes, I didn’t even get the guy and had to settle for someone I wasn’t as into. 

  
  


JESSICA

OK, Ok! I get it. TMI!

  
  


LOUISE

I’m with you, Jess. I’m never doing a sex scene. Kind of a shame though. Rudy writes that stuff so beautifully. You know, Rude, if you want to play around with some other chick, it’s totally cool, and you can write about it. It would actually be kind of hot.

  
  


RUDY

Gulp. Is that an order?

  
  


LOUISE

What? Of course not. Just sayin’

  
  


TINA

Alright, everyone. Let Jess continue.

  
  


JESSICA

Thanks, T. 

Where was I?

  
  


GENE

Wet panties.

  
  


JESSICA

Um. thanks.

So when Mel plays, anyone paying attention would know they were in the presence of a force of nature. Then, get her behind closed doors and she can’t help but raise up her Aspect and show her Attribute. She is...

OK, this sex goddess metaphor is getting out of hand. She’s just fucking hot. Most people would call her body “dumpy,” but they’d be full of shit. She’s this tiny, plump thing with delicious dark skin and an aura of sensuality so pure and deep that it becomes _sex_ uality the way some gasses become liquid under enough pressure. I’m getting dizzy just talking about her.

So let me take a step back... 

The other fascinating thing about this situation is just how much of human sexuality I’ve been exposed to and become conversant in. I’ve watched both Mel and Joss make love to Gene and to Ronny. I’ve been present when Courtney and Scott made love with Gene (he is one lucky bastard, that guy), which wasn’t nearly as weird as I thought it would be; I’ve even made love with Tina’s boyfriend, Mac. We didn’t have intercourse, mind you. And I didn’t do anything with his dick. I guess it’s more accurate to say he went down on me.  _ That _ was weird, but it was also very nice. Mac’s the sweetest guy, and he was very sensitive to the fact that I was way out of my comfort zone. 

And I can’t deny it, he’s damned good at... um, well, let’s just say Tina’s a lucky woman.

See? As soon as I get into the gory details, I choke.

Anyway, the point is, I’ve done, I’ve seen, I’ve experimented. It’s been lovely, and I wouldn’t change a thing. But it’s hard for me to talk about as freely as everyone else seems to.

In conclusion: Mel is fucking hot.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

What - someone else here already used that punch line. 

Ah, well - good artists borrow, great artists steal.

Thank you and goodnight.

  
  


RUDY

Whoosh seems to like hanging out on Ocean Drive near Chez Gene and the restaurant. This morning, no one is outside to talk to, so he flies in through an open living room window upstairs.

Louise and I are curled up on the sofa, partially dressed under an imitation sheepskin rug. I’m wearing her bunny ears. It’s... a thing and none of your business.

I’m just barely awake, blissful from the feeling of Louise’s flesh against mine. I open one eye and a tiny, articulated camera stares back at me. Then it does this thing where a protective shutter covers the lens then retracts. It’s winking at me.

What can I do? I wink back.

Its synthesized voice strongly resembles Janeane Garofalo’s - one of the comics whose work is a major touchstone of Whoosh’s and Buzz’s speech patterns. It’s a little higher, though, with a tendency to emphasize words more like Margaret Cho would. 

Buzz’s voice is masculine and its timbre and speech patterns are a mixture of Patton Oswalt and Louis CK, to the dismay, in the case of the latter, of many people in the community. I don’t see the problem unless Buzz starts asking women around here to watch it masturbate. 

“Yeah, so this is cute. Making love under a sheepskin. Sensuous, but bad Karma, right?” I recall that Garofalo was a vegan.

“It’s imitation sheepskin," I say. "No sheep were harmed in the making of last night’s sexcapade.”

Whoosh manages, somehow, to look thoughtful for a moment, then says “I guess that’s better. Not that there are any sheep to harm in the first place. Sad. I’d enjoy scanning one, quantifying the complexity of the living wool texture. I love a challenge.”

Louise is awake now. She nuzzles me and takes back her bunny ears. We are in opposite states of undress. I’m wearing a t-shirt but no undies or pants; Louise is topless but wearing shorts. Noticing the presence of Whoosh and its incredibly sensitive camera, she grabs the blanket to cover herself, leaving me bare to the elements and to Woosh, whose camera pans down for a moment, then back up to look me in the eye. Now it laughs its ass off. 

“That’s it, huh?” it says, through its laughter - neat trick from a voice synthesis perspective.

There was I time when this exchange would have mortified me. Filled me with angry, self-destructive thoughts.

Not today. I look Whoosh right in the eye. The camera, anyway. 

“Bigger than yours,” I say, with both pride and snark.

“Bug spray’s on the window sill,” says Louise.

“Oh, please. I’m a non-sentient robot insect. Like I care about your genitals,” says Whoosh.

“Oh, please,” counters Louise. “All of your data is processed back at Princeton. Miriam could be monitoring it at any time.”

Whoosh escalates, nearly yelling “Oooooooh, puhleeeeeease. Miriam’s a stone dyke. The last thing she wants to look at is your boyfriend’s tiny little junk. Now, if you want to give her a thrill, you could drop that blanket and let her get a nice look.”

“Hey!” barks Louise. “Is that you, Miriam? Not cool, Miriam.”

“I’m not Miriam. Jesus,” says Whoosh. “But I  _ am  _ conferencing with Buzz. Maybe you’re being #metoo-ed by Louie.”

“Oh, come on, I don’t think Patton would stand for that kind of thing,” I say.

This is officially the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had. 

Louise has found her bra and shirt. I look for the rest of my coverings as well.

“Well,” says Whoosh, “this has been lovely, but I really must go harass someone else. I try to get in at least half a dozen before breakfast. Any ideas?”

“Sure,” says Louise. “Go talk to the  fish in the lake in the park. See how long you can last underwater.”

“You’re not nice,” says Whoosh, and zips away.


	14. Lost in Translation

SUSMITA

My head is ready to explode. In a good way. 

I didn’t think I had it in me to understand, much less master, the concepts and processes that are now becoming second nature to me. I’ve become so immersed in staggeringly complex, abstract programming languages that I’ve begun to think - even dream - in them: visions of long chains of symbols unavailable to QUERTY keyboards no matter how many ALT-CTRL-SHIFT-FN keys you hold down.

I swear, this stuff would have made Newton bleed out through his ears. It’s a few steps beyond traditional AI programming. We’re working in languages Miriam created from scratch using schemes of symbolic logic with no parallel in contemporary (well, pre-plague) computer science. One of her languages is composed entirely of symbols  _ she invented _ , invoking functions in a manner with no precedent, requiring custom components only Anais can design just to run them.

That one is still completely over my head, but what it does is compress a set of 447 core - if complex - AI functions into individual commands or short sets of commands, and allow them to be linked together, or arranged in hierarchies of dependencies of astonishing complexity without grinding out millions of lines of code. It also allows for a level of flexibility in experimenting with combinations of those functions that would be spectacularly unwieldy in any other programming language. 

Understand - if you’re following this in the first place - that this isn’t a matter of building the complex commands, with their tens of thousands of lines of code, into the base operating systems of the AIs, to be invoked by the programming language. Somehow, Anais designs circuitry that actually _ thinks _ in these symbols, somehow. Between them, Miriam and Anais have developed machines that, while not sentient, truly can think. 

The most advanced aspects of their work are still far, far beyond me. But I’m going to get there. In the meantime, I’m designing my own AIs - both pure software and systems for running robots. My work doesn’t approach what Miriam is doing, but it’s pretty damned impressive.

I’ve mastered the art of creating AI personalities. And it  _ is _ an art as well as a technical skill. I’ve convincingly recreated several historical figures working from their writings, contemporaneous accounts, biographies, and general knowledge of their eras. My favorite so far is Alexander Hamilton, who is very accurate historically, but also occasionally breaks into extemporaneous rap and hip-hop.

No, get it: I programmed it to generate original hip-hop verses, not quotes from “Hamilton.” Well, those, too, but it does come up with original, well-rhymed raps with historically accurate content. Sometimes it even corrects historical inaccuracies in the musical - on its own; I didn’t write a routine to do that. It’s actually developed the motivation to do so on its own.

Tina was right - I _am_ in Miriam’s league. Maybe a utility infielder, not a superstar home run king like her, but I can hold my own on her team.

Tina was also right in intuiting that Miriam has a crush on me, and as God is my witness, I have no idea what to do about it. I mean, I’m straight but increasingly less narrow as time goes on. I’ve made out, just a little bit, with a girl or two - OK, two - on a couple special occasions when it just felt right. And I’m certainly in love with Miriam’s mind. Who wouldn’t be?

I might even be willing to explore the possibilities, but I get mixed signals from Anais. I’m pretty sure she wants Miriam to herself. And I’m certain she’s noticed her flirting with me (it’s not very subtle). But at the same time, she’s friendly and relaxed with me - at least as much so as with Miriam - which is either a very convincing act or an indication that whatever is going on between her and Miriam, she doesn’t hold it against me. Maybe it’s both.

But frankly, I’ve got three boyfriends as it is, and even as our household careens toward a group marriage (Mac is the only one still on the fence), I find myself married to my work. I don’t have the energy or time to think about Miriam in that context.

Or anything else. Honestly, I shouldn’t have spent the time I have on this. It’s going to cost me more sleep than I can afford.

Anyone want to pick up from here?

  
  


JODI

Sure thing, Sus. Go rest your gigantic brain.

So - four down, one to go.

I don’t blame Mac for holding out. He loves me and Susmita, and thinks the twins are great guys, but he’s crazy for Tina (and seeing Mel occasionally). I don’t think he’ll make a decision until after he and Tina are officially married. And I wish they’d do it already, because out of some stupid and completely out-of-character sense of tradition, Louise and Rudy won’t tie the knot until Tina has. 

And get this - apparently, Rudy has finally warmed up to the idea of opening up the relationship, but wants to get married first, which is driving me nuts, because - not that my dance card isn’t overfull as it is, but I really dig Rudy, and he’s been flirting with me, and enough buildup already! Why does everybody wait to do everything?

  
  


TINA

The problem is that the whole group marriage thing has put Mac and me into a kind of stasis. Mac’s in an agony of indecision on how to make everything work.

  
  


JODI

Seriously? I figured he just wanted to marry you first and then figure out the group thing.

  
  


TINA

Sort of. He has trouble articulating it. But I think I have the solution.

  
  


JODI

Good. Spill it.

  
  


TINA

The rest of you guys get married. Then Mac and I will get married. Then we, as a couple, will marry the rest of you.

  
  


JODI

...

  
  


TINA   
Problem?

  
  


JODI

Well, it just seems needlessly complex.

  
  


TINA

Yeah, it is. But it’s all needless anyway. I’m with Susmita: marriage is bullshit. I mean, if there’s ever offspring involved, I think we need to codify our collective and individual responsibilities. Otherwise, it’s just pomp and circumstance. 

  
  


JODI

[sigh] Fine, Me and Grant and Dean and Sus will set a date. Then you and Mac can set a date, then Louise and Rudy can set a date. Then, as a bonus, at some point in the just barely foreseeable future, I can add Rudy to my stable.

  
  


TINA

Yee. Ha.

  
  


JODI

And yippie-ky-yay. Heh. If they’re opening up their relationship, who do you think Louise is gonna bag?

  
  


TINA

Not a clue. The only guy she’s ever shown the slightest interest in besides Rudy is Boo-Boo from Boyz 4 Now. Probably not in the cards.

  
  


JODI

Hmm... I’ll see who I can come up with for her.

  
  


TINA

I don’t recommend it. Seems like the kind of thing that would put her in Slap Mode.

  
  


JODI

Noted and ignored.

OK, who’s next? I’ve got scheming to do.

  
  


SUSMITA

Not me, but let’s do it this Saturday. We’ve been putting it off for months.

  
  


JODI

Great. I’ll alert the twins.

  
  


SUSMITA

Cool. Oh, and one mor-- zzzzzzzzzzzz.

  
  


JODI

Anyway, who’s next?

  
  


RUDY

I’ll go.

  
  


JODI

You go, hot stuff...

  
  


LOUISE

Hey, flirt all you want, just remember: if you guys do it, there’ll be a sex scene. 

  
  


RUDY

Not if she doesn’t want there to be.

  
  


JODI

I’m thinking about it. Every night, actually.

  
  


LOUISE

Settle down, you two. And you know what, Rude? I think I want to go next.

  
  


RUDY

As you wish.

  
  


LOUISE

Good boy.

So, while we’re gossiping - I’m not saying this is the answer to Jodi’s completely slappable intentions, but I’ve noticed that Ollie has been mooning over me - staring at me with his prophet’s eyes. 

I really don’t see myself acting on it. As odd-looking as he and his brother were as kids, he’s actually a pretty damned handsome young adult; but it wouldn't feel right, somehow - even if he wasn’t as mad as a hatter even when the wind is north by northwest. Or isn’t. I forget the whole quote. He and Andy were like my little brothers, even though we were the same age. 

Also, the idea of making love to Andy’s ghost, even if only one of us believed that was going on, feels a bit like necrophilia, and a bit like the world’s weirdest three-way, neither of which appeals.

Not that Ollie’s love life is foundering without me. He’s got those eyes, and is pretty cute, and girls are just dripping off of him. Tess, in a rare episode of cougardom, relieved him of his virginity, handed him off to Jocelyn (who’s back to being bi-), who handed him off  _ the same day _ to Courtney, and she told two friends, and so on and so on...

Still, while he’s cut a happy, friendly swath through the local female population, he seems to regard me as special somehow...

  
  


RUDY

He’s right, of course.

  
  


LOUISE

Shh!

...and much as I hate to admit it, his gaze does... things to me. I totally get why girls are lining up for his attentions like he was a Beatle in 1964. The two dorkiest kids in my school have combined into a single love god. 

But still, no. Too rich for my blood. 

Honestly, if I’m gonna fool around with anyone else...

  
  


JODI

Yes...?

  
  


LOUISE

Quiet, you.

...I’m not sure who it would be. Not that Seymour’s Bay is hurting for cute guys, and there are plenty of guys, cute or otherwise, that I genuinely like. But I’d almost rather live vicariously through Rude. 

  
  


JODI

Well, if you ask me...

LOUISE

I don’t.

  
  


JODI

Well, OK, then.

  
  


LOUISE

...

  
  


JODI

...

  
  


LOUISE

So scram.

  
  


JODI

Fine, but you’ll come crawling back.

  
  


LOUISE

Begone, you demented yente!

  
  


GENE

Can I step in here?

  
  


LOUISE

Please. After that exchange, I’ve got to go make Rudy’s day. Again.

  
  


RUDY

Yay! Give me a minute to change the sheets...

  
  


LOUISE

To hell with that. This requires decisive, extreme action. Meet me in the park, In the gazebo.

RUDY

...

  
  


LOUISE

That’s an order.

  
  


RUDY

Sir yes sir! Ma’am!

  
  


GENE

Aaaaaanywaaay...

Just to bookend what Susmita was saying, this AI stuff is delighting me and freaking me out.

I mean, the two flying standup comics are just my speed. On sunny days, when their solar cell-infused wings can recharge them as they hover, we get into some serious bantering, probably the closest thing to the Friar’s Club to be found anywhere in the post-apocalyptic landscape.

The mantis registers at about 30% on my freakometer. I mean, she’s also funny as shit, and loves to talk turkey about technical topics. (I have an appetite for alliteration.) But she identifies as female, and she’s a mantis, and keeps threatening, in jest, to bite my head off. I tell her I have no plans to mate with her, she says it’s not up to me, which she follows up with a borscht-belt joke to diffuse the tension. Which doesn’t mean I don’t have occasional nightmares.

But what’s really eerie is Susmita’s brain-in-a-jar historical figures. Yesterday, I had an hour-long conversation with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton about, well, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. And by conversation, I mean I listened to them bicker. As anyone familiar with history or Lin-Manuel Miranda knows, they did not get along.

But that’s not the eerie part. At one point, they were arguing about John Adams, and the Jefferson software took it upon itself to generate an AI of Adams, using the same algorithms that had been used to generate the Jefferson program itself. Then the three of them got into a knock-down-drag-out that concluded with a rap-battle that Hamilton won handily.

When I told Susmita about all that, she stared at me for about 10 seconds, muttered “what hath God wrought,” opened a chat client on her phone, called up Miriam, and they launched into a the following conversation:

_ Susmita: Zoomba! Zoomba on marmalade threnody peptide eschatology verbium! _

_ Miriam: Potlatch? On which dromedary does the pangloss amalgam plankton molybdenum? _

_ Susmita: None really. Mango intuitive ypsilanti rhumba. You splinth the mobius, or dingo belarus interminable. _

_ Miriam: Trochaic osmosis takes lethargy from the duplicative botulism. Does calumny ever affect the minisculinity of the granule? _

_ Susmita: Spock-grip, that’s for sure. I deprecated a schizm just emulsifying it. _

_ Miriam: Preambulatory, really. _

_ Susmita: Redactic verisimilitude, _

_ Miriam: Precisely. The pedagogy reconstitutes the tropism - if you varnish your ampules concurrently. Once you laminate the zygomorphs with a liquid vagueness, the causality becomes endemic to the entire llama egg, and your dramaturgcials and your rotarys resect themselvevs. _

_ Susmita: True dat. _

Well, at least that’s what it sounded like.

I have no idea what just happened here, but I’m scared shitless.

Also, our founding fathers were complete pricks. Depressing.


	15. Walk Hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit just got real...

TINA

No. Just, no.

This can’t be happening.

Susmita is showing me the feed from one of Howard's satellites. We’re looking down from what appears to be about 75 feet above ground at the town of who gives a shit, Montana. Three human figures are shambling across a former high school or junior college football field. 

We zoom in closer. From this angle, we’re looking over their shoulders from what appears to be about ten feet up. Their clothes are tattered, and the exposed skin is...wrong. I try to tell myself there’s a reasonable explanation for what I’m seeing. There have been walking sicknesses before - diseases that caused their victims to wander aimlessly. The plague was like that, though the victims crawled. These people are walking, if just barely.

Then, as if to refute all reasonable explanations, one of them stops in its tracks, turns, and looks upward for some reason (perhaps it just stumbled), and it’s all over. My world, my lovely little world, shatters into a million pieces, and the pieces shatter into dust. 

The face that turns toward us is... not a face. It is mostly exposed bone. One eye socket is empty, the other is... furry? No, it’s crawling with...

I don’t even have time to run to the window or to the bathroom. I vomit on the floor in front of Susmita’s desk. I want to apologize, but she’s dashing for the bathroom herself. I hear the contents of her stomach splash into the toilet. Then she screams at the top of her lungs, and I moan pitifully - a sound I don’t even recognize. Not even from the height of the plague. 

This is different than the plague of three years ago. Crawlers were recognizably alive. Broken, horrific, pitiful, but alive. They had, for example, all of their skin. Even the skin on their bellies. They moved so slowly, they rarely even tore their clothing. 

That thing on the monitor - which has now mercifully turned away - is not alive. It’s a corpse. And it’s walking. 

Zombies. Actual. Fucking. Zombies.

“You OK, kid?”

Howard’s voice emanates reassuringly from his office near Orlando.

“Yeah,” I say, as Susmita wanders back in. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” he says. “I had the same reaction.” I notice that his face in the chat client is glazed with sweat, and his eyes are crazed. “I hadn’t looked one in the face before. That’s... that’s just... Jesus Christ.” 

Howard is the unflappable type, so watching him shake and weep on Susmita’s monitor is a devastating blow I don’t need on top of the shock of seeing _real fucking zombies_.

Susmita returns to her seat (placing a towel over my little puddle of vomit). She’s shaking like a leaf. “Howard, what was that? I mean really. I know what it looked like. But there’s no such thing as... those. What’s really happening.”

Howard’s response is unsatisfactory. “Fuck if I know. They’re clearly animated corpses. Functionally, the Z-word applies.”

I raise my voice a touch hysterically. “Dammit, Howard, I need you to tell me something so I don’t curl up in a fetal position!”

He obliges. “Well, OK, I’m pretty sure they’re not hungry for brains.” Whew. “On the other hand...” Oh, fuck you, Howard, “...they may be a serious health hazard the way any pile of decay would be. And while I think it’s highly unlikely, we have to allow for the possibility that they’re capable of actually attacking people, as opposed to just rotting in their general direction.”

I have other questions, but my mouth is desiccated. Luckily, Susmita can still form complete sentences. “Are these the only ones you’ve seen?”

“Yes.” Oh, thank God. “But - and I hate to say this...” Dammit, Howard, ‘yes’ is a complete answer! “...this can’t be an isolated incident. I’d be stunned if it wasn’t related to the 2024 plague.”

_Seven and a half billion corpses._

While the world goes all fuzzy and gray, he continues. “I just spoke to Miriam, and she’s going to see if she can come up with some AI routines for my satellites and her weather balloons to monitor for walkers.” Oh, good. Now they have an official, if unimaginative, name.

“Now, before you panic...”

“Too late,” I say, in unison with Susmita.

“...remember, this is the real world. Those... things... aren’t the product of dark magic. At a guess, I’d say we’re actually looking at the work of colony organisms like jellyfish, clinging to the corpses and making them move. If I’m right, they’re not sentient. They don’t hunger for brains. They’re just lumbering piles of decay that will eventually collapse of their own accord.”

“Keep going,” I say, “this is helping.”

“We have to look at these things for what they are: a pestilence. An ambulatory pestilence. Very contagious. Not like the movies where a zombie bite turns you into another zombie. I mean they’re basically made of disease. If they do start showing up in your area, you have to be prepared to kill them with fire - from a distance.”

“Damn,” says Susmita, “I knew I should have joined the Flamethrower of the Month Club when I had a chance.”

How the hell can she joke? I guess she’s so smart she can be funny and terrified at the same time. I was never that good at multitasking.

“Look, I’ve got a lot of stuff to coordinate with Miriam. Take care, and don’t panic. On the one hand, those three probably aren’t the only ones. On the other, there may be specific conditions that allowed it to happen where and when it did, so the phenomenon may be isolated geographically, and it may only affect a small subset of corpses, and so on. I already contacted the mayor about this, but she didn’t get to see that DeMille closeup headshot, so you may want to go tell her what you just saw.

“Just hold it together for now. Miriam and I will let you know if and when you need to worry. In the meantime, enjoy life. Have a nice wedding. Proceed with business as usual.”

Seriously?

“Howard,” I say, “I just looked zombie in the maggot-filled eye-socket. How do I go back to business as usual?”

“By noticing that nothing has changed. Those things you saw were in Montana. At their rate of travel, they’re a year away, and they’re not even moving in your direction. And frankly, I don’t see them holding together for more than a few months.”

“And if there are some closer to us?” I ask.

_Five thousand corpses rising from the mass graves in the Wagstaff playground._

“Kill them with fire.”

Great. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just saw my own head off with a grapefruit knife? Get it over with?” 

It’s a sincere question, but he doesn’t know that “Sounds labor-intensive,” says Howard, “but you do you.”

“Thanks,” I say.

* * *

Bonus: [Susmitas Theme](https://bit.ly/3eUE0SR)


	16. Three Weddings and a Zombie Apocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's about to get *really* real.
> 
> Stay tuned for Part 3.

SUSMITA

I manage to catch Ollie between dates. He answers his phone on the first ring. “Hey, Susmita,” he says, “have you reconsidered my invitation?”

“Sorry, no. I have more lovers than I can handle as it is. But thanks.”

Ollie is not hard up. “Cool. What’s up?”

“Well, I was wondering - when you were out looking for Andy, did you ever see any... how can I put this? Anything that looked like--”

“Zombies? Yeah, a few. Wait, _what_ ? You saw _zombies_? Where? New York, Boston, Philly, all the big cities...”

It takes me a moment to parse what I’m hearing. Apparently, Andy saw zombies when he was floating around the big cities. And didn’t mention it to Ollie when they merged. 

Except none of that could have happened, because “Andy” isn’t real. So Ollie must have seen them but didn’t mention it, which seems hard to believe. There’s also the matter of how he knew what I was going to ask.

I’ll let the latter conundrum go for the moment. 

“Ollie, if you saw zombies, why didn’t you say anything?” Aw, crap, that was a pointless question.

“ _I_ didn’t say anything,” says the part of Ollie’s brain that thinks it’s Andy, “because I didn’t want to freak Ollie out.”

_I don’t have time for this shit._

“OK, guys, I need you to cancel any plans you have for the rest of the afternoon and get over here. And by here I mean the mayor’s office.”

“I can give you about half an hour...”

I have Ollie on speaker, and Danielle isn’t having any of this. She grabs the phone out of my hand and says “Mr. Pesto, there are _walking dead people_. If you have any legitimate reason to regard that situation as less urgent than your sex life, I want to hear it, and I want every bit of supporting information you’ve got, no matter how long it takes. Do you understand?”

Ollie chuckles. “Sure thing, Ms. Mayor. I’ll reschedule with Cynthia. See you in about ten.”

“Good,” says Danielle, handing the phone back to me. I say “Thanks, guys,” but Ollie has already ended the call.

  
  


TINA

Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!

Yes, I’m writing that. That is a detailed and nuanced summary of my feelings at the moment.

Zombies. 

_Goddamn motherfucking sonofabitch zombies._

Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!

Ok. Ok. Gotta calm down. They’re in Montana. Might as well be Mars. Unless Andy is real and there are some near here, too.

Huh! Huh! Huh-- NO! This is not the movies. There’s a rational explanation, and they’re not going to eat anyone’s brains. They might spread disease, but that’s all. 

_But what if they start digging their way up out of the ground in the Wagstaff graves?_

I need someone to talk me down.

Right. Kid conference!

GENE

Here.

  
  


LOUISE

Present

  
  


RUDY

Hand raised.

  
  


TINA

Hi, Rude. I was going to say you’re not a Belcher kid, but you will be in a couple days.

  
  


RUDY

Exactly.

  
  


TINA

Ok. Now. Someone please tell me why I shouldn’t panic about the zombies.

  
  


GENE, LOUISE & RUDY

...

...

...

  
  


LOUISE

Um, what zombies?

  
  


TINA

Oh, crap. Right. Oh my god, please don’t make me tell this story again.

  
  


GENE

There’s crawlers again? The plague is back?

  
  


TINA

Not crawlers. Walkers. Dead walkers. I saw one with no face and maggots in its eye socket.

  
  


RUDY

What?! Where?!

  
  


TINA

On Howard’s satellite feed. They’re in Montana.

  
  


GENE

Ohthankgod!

TINA

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any nearby.

  
  


LOUISE

What _does_ it mean? Are you saying this is the actual zombie apocalypse? Jesus Christ - what the _fuck_ is happening?!!

  
  


TINA

I don’t know. I don’t know. 

  
  


GENE

Ok, everyone. Calm down. There’s no reason to think they’re anywhere other than Montana.

  
  


LOUISE

Yeah, because everyone knows that only the state of Montana has the right conditions for making zombies. What the fuck, Gene?

  
  


RUDY

Look, panicking isn’t going to help.

  
  


LOUISE

I don’t know, I say it’s worth a shot.

  
  


TINA

Look, let’s move this kid conference to my place. Susmita’s monitoring the situation. Howard’s scanning the landscape with his satellites, and Miriam’s got a fleet of dragonfly-bots on reconnaissance. Plus her weather-balloon cameras. And she’s writing AI software for all of them to recognize walkers themselves.

The mayor has a task force searching for weapons all over town, and one searching nearby military bases.

Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe Montana is an isolated incident.

But if it isn’t, we’ll handle it. 

  
  


RUDY

Kill ‘em with fire.

  
  


LOUISE

That’s my boy.

My man.

  
  


RUDY

[blush]

  
  


GENE

So it’s settled. Weddings on Saturday, target practice on Sunday.

  
  


TINA

Alright. Let’s do this. 

[melodramatically] I’ve got a wedding to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recently. I've posted several brief chapters instead of one long one, because reasons.
> 
> Part 3 should be less talk, more action.
> 
> Aw, who am I kidding? There'll be plenty of talk, too. And probably a bunch more smut. 
> 
> Because reasons.


End file.
